Riddled With Heaven
by G.E Waldo
Summary: Sequel to Gone With the World . Some will destroy Eden to reach Paradise.
1. Chapter 1

RIDDLED WITH HEAVEN

Part I

By GeeLady

(Sequel to _Gone With the World_)

 f

Summary: Some will destroy Eden to reach Paradise.

Rating: M for Mature. **Slash**. Violence. **Rape**. Language. This is an **_MPreg!!_**

Pairing: House **_plus_ Wilson/Foreman/Chase**

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House and others to my hearts content. No fee's, no earnings,...just fun!

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"Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you." - Yasser Arafat

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The living room was set directly off the mud room entrance. The front doors were missing so the interior of the brick house smelled musty and wild and was littered with leaves blown in through the door and the many broken windows.

Wilson walked from there into the kitchen. Large enough to comfortably seat eight, he saw set against one wall a white, long dead electric stove battling for space with an old fashioned upright, black cast iron, wood burning furnace. Above it a sooty stove pipe five inches in diameter, rose four feet above the stoves' heat outlet to a double elbow joint, where it split in two, each pipe disappearing into the wall ten inches below the ceiling. One pipe stretched nine feet into the living room and ended with another very short elbow down-turn fitted with a square heat distribution maw. The other pipe tunneled up one floor and again split, prepared to bring heat into each bedroom if only someone would light a fire.

The snake-god presence of the pipes was suspended nine inches below the ceiling and kept in position by tin clamps screwed into metal fittings set into the ceiling. Every room was anointed with them and the smear and smell of soot on the walls and ceilings.

Wilson had taken enough time to inspect each room and returned to the cars satisfied that they had found their haven. "This is about the best we've seen." He said to Foreman, driving the second car. Wilson glanced over to the vehicle he and House had traveled in but House was paying attention to the tiny infant in his arms, trying to coax a rubber nipple into his mouth. The bottle itself was almost as big as their son.

Wilson felt a exquisite pang of affection as he watched House play with the babys' fingers that were attached to tiny red hands not much bigger than a Robins' foot. House didn't even look up.

"It must be a hundred years old at least but it's brick, so it's sturdy." Wilson explained. "There's a wood burning furnace in the kitchen, two large bedrooms and even an old fashioned pull toilet. Who ever lived here didn't care for updating to modern appliances." _But, on the other hand,_ _lucky us. _"Check it out."

Foreman got out of the car and looked around. The farm they were about to appropriate was located in a secluded area, too, which suited him just fine. The last thing they needed or wanted was company. By the condition of the yard and the disrepair of the fences and neglected appearance of the place in general, it was obvious the owners had been gone a while, probably since Outbreak.

"Hello Eden." Foreman repeated a thing his mother, a strongly religious woman, used to say back when she knew she was dying. Certainly she was dead now. A short time ago Foreman had stopped feeling the grief in remembering that almost everyone he knew, at least of the female persuasion, was dead.

His children were a comfort and a new reason to live. And not just live, but live well. Live better. His three mates, especially House and his life-giving body, were impetus to carry on strongly and find some happiness again.

Already he could feel it beginning.

Chase brought their other son into the house from the car. The vehicles themselves Wilson drove around back and parked in the decrepit barn out of sight. "We'll have to think of some sort of emergency strategy. You know, in case they owners come back." Chase remarked as he stood in the center of a leaf and twig decorated living room. The hard wood floors showed wear but were not warped or lifting up. No water damage was immediately noticeable.

"This is nice." Chase said, and at Foremans' raised eyebrows, "Well, I mean it will be once we fix the windows and clean it up." He shivered. "And get some heat going."

Wilson walked to the front door. "I'll find some wood."

"Wait." Chase motioned for Wilson to take the baby. "I'll find the wood. And we have to check for nests."

Confused, "Nests?" Wilson asked, taking Reid carefully in his hands and smiling down on his son. Reid was actually Foreman and Houses' son. And Jordan was Chase and Houses'.

His son was still nestled inside Houses' swollen abdomen, probably only hours now from announcing to them that he was about to invade their lives with a whole new set of lungs.

Chase nodded. "Yeah. This place's been empty for yearsf. Small animals move in, build nests and store food and things in the piping. We have to make sure they're clear before we light any fire or we could be smoked out."

Wilson, raised exclusively in a city and in wealth wrapped his blanket mummied son in his warm hands. "Oh." He turned his eyes to the baby and let Chase deal with the things in which Chase was clearly more competent than he. "Coo, coo . . .Hello Reid. Hello tiny baby boy." Wilson held the baby up so he could see the featureless walls and ceiling. There was nothing much to look at yet. "This is your new home."

Reids' nut colored perfect skin held two tiny brown but bright eyes, a square, broad nose and puckered mouth that never stopped moving. He stared away then back, more fascinated by this fwhite-skinned object floating above him and speaking his name. Reid gurgled his approval.

XXX

"We need to make formula." House announced the next morning.

Chase, Foreman and Wilson had spent most of the day cleaning out the heating pipes, sweeping out the rooms and boarding up the broken windows. Chase had got a good fire going in the wood burning kitchen furnace and soon, delicious welcoming heat was building in every corner. "We need to keep this fire going pretty well all the time." Chase instructed. "At least for the next month or so." It was only April and the nights were cold this far North and the mornings sharp and humid. By six AM, frost had grown on every branch of the trees and bushes in the yard. Only after the sun had licked them clean by mid morning did the seasons feel like they were passing from winter into spring.

Foreman answered. "I know. We only have a days worth left. By tomorrow night, the babies' will have nothing to eat."

Chase had an idea. "Well, this used to be a farm. There might be animals still hanging around the area. If not, we need to go hunting or trapping today."

House stared at him strangely. "Jordan and Reid can't eat beef. We need milk, eggs, and eventually fruit and vegetables."

Chase stood up, slipping on his shoes. "I know." He jerked his head at Foreman. "Need you."

Foreman followed Chase into the yard. Chase quickly inspected the small buildings adjacent to the large, drafty animal barn. He approached a likely structure made of banged together two by fours and ply-wood. Surrounding it was chicken wire that had sagged in some spots. A rusty trough that had served as a feeding station now held nothing but dirt and leaves. "Well, they had chickens at one time anyway. That's good."

"Yeah. _Had_. How is that good?" Foreman asked.

Chase found a small door in the shed that lead to another part of it, a lean-to area sealed off from the birds roost. He let out a yelp. "Yes!" Chase pulled out a small sack of chicken feed. "Hungry people might conceivably eat their horses oats if they were hungry enough, but even starving man would probably pass on chicken feed."

Foreman shook his head. "Chase. There are no _chickens_ here. I'm guessing when supplies ran low, that they didn't pass on roast chicken."

"Yeah, but look at the feathers."

Foreman glanced around. On the hard packed feces strewn soil were chicken feathers of varying orange, browns and blacks. None appeared to have been recently shed. "So?"

"Well, they're _brown." _

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"A-a-a-n-d. . .?"

Chase smiled to himself. He looked around until he located a large tin with a two inch high rim on it. Picking it up and, carrying the bag of seed, he walked out of the chicken house. Then he pointed to a light, hand-held cage with a simple swing door held closed by a twist of wire. "Chicken cage. Transport to the market kind. This'll hold about five or six."

Foreman said, "Uh huh. Now if we only had _chickens_, we could go shopping."

Chase handed the cage to Foreman. "Just carry this and come with me."

Foreman followed Chase across the yard, through a section of barbed wire fence that only had a single wire left intact, both men easily stepping over it. Chase lead him to an area of wheat field overgrown with thistles and wild grass until he came to an area near a small grove of coniferous and white weeping birch trees. Not far was a small meandering stream that was obviously the farms' main water supply.

Chase walked slowly through the trees, looking mostly up instead of where he was going. "It's still early. They might still be . . ." He pointed. "there."

Foreman had no idea what Chase was looking at. "What?"

Chase waved him over. Foreman obeyed and when he trained his eyes on what Chase was pointing to, he was startled to see a chicken, a fat brown bird, nestled in a tree branch about twenty feet off the ground. "Is that a chicken?"

Chase nodded. "Yeah. Brown chickens are called Bantams. They can fly short distances and like to sleep in tree branches. Survival instinct." Chase looked at them fondly. "My aunt had some on her farm near Braidwood in New South Wales. They often escape and breed in the wild, but they never go far from a known source of food."

Foreman silently praised their feathered ingenuity. Survival was the name of the game now as ever. He picked up a small stick and tossed it up, trying to hit the branch where the bird studiously ignored him, his grain-sized black eyes shut against the intruders rudeness, sleeping on. Foreman tried again, then he started to jump and shout, waving his arms.

Chase watched him for a few seconds, enjoying the moment. "What are you doing?"

Foreman looked at him like he was blind. "What does it look like? I'm trying to get them out of the tree. If we want chicken dinner tonight, we're actually going to have to catch a few."

Chase put out a hand to settle his mate down. "Just hang on. Stand over there."

Foreman stopped his wild and fruitless jumping and shouting and stepped aside to watch.

Chase took the bag, poured out a handful of feed into the tin plate and shook it around a little like he was panning for gold, making the feed rattle. He dropped the pan and stood back a few feet.

One by one the birds awoke, spread decoratively colored wings and fluttered to the ground. In a tight flock and without any fear, they bobbed along over to the tin and began to eat, setting up a din of clucking and scratching, trying to get first digs on the food.

Foreman looked over at Chase. "Wipe that smugness off your face and help me get theses chickens into the cage."

Chase addressed the problem of milk by leaving once more on a trip with Foreman, exploring the country and hill sides, eventually coming across a small herd of domesticated goats gone wild. Foreman, learning from Chases' example, had brought along a bucket of chicken feed. Swishing it in the bucket, it sounded enough like oats to draw the skitterish creatures on a meandering trek back to the farm and a small, fenced enclosure not far from the chicken house.

Leaving House to care for the babies for a while, Wilson had used the time in their absence to hammer back in place some of the loser boards that had lost their nails and fallen off, using a fist-sized granite rock.

The goats milled around and Chase hauled them a half bale of musty hay from the feed barn, gratified that the former family had abandoned the place but left behind a fairly good store of animal feed. The goats, along with a few buckets of fresh water from the stream, happily munched dinner from their thoughtful captors.

Chase said as he entered the rust-colored brick house, kicking off his shoes, "I'll milk a couple of the goats tomorrow and you can boil up the milk for Jordan and Reid. There might even be a few chicken eggs by then if any of them are layers." He glanced at Foreman with more smugness. "Unless you want to take a crack at milking?"

Foreman gave him a dirty look but decided he just might. As doctors turned farmers, they were all going to have to wear various hats.

House acknowledged the information with a nod. He would have to find berries perhaps and mash them for their juice. Perhaps there were wild eatables growing nearby and he asked Chase so.

Chase shrugged. "I'll check that out too. Eventually we might not have to go that far. If these people ever had a vegetable garden with anything rooted or perennial, like potatoes or raspberries, there might still be a limited crop come up this year. Usually people miss digging up some potatoes and they're left to root and grow again. Maybe there'll be carrots and onions even. Or even wild onions."

"How do you know all this stuff?" House asked.

"I spent time on my aunts farm as a kid. A lot of time. Dad worked and Mom . . ." He trailed off and House decided not to press him.

"Thanks." House said.

Chase walked over to him. House was occupying the stuffed living room chair. There was a couch also, both upholstered with material that had to be fifty years old at least. It was rough, carpet-like material that left tiny dots on bare skin. Its only advantage was it was tough wearing. Chase passed the couch and crouched down in front of House. He tickled Jordans' fat cheek. "Anything for our tiny boys." Chase quickly kissed House on the lips and House returned to encouraging his babies to suckle.

"I'm going to check upstairs - see where Wilson's planning on sticking us all tonight."

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Wilson roped Chase into assisting with bed-making in the largest of two bedrooms. The whole upper floor contained the sleeping area and nothing else. Economy of heat, he supposed.

"Where did you get the sheets and blankets?" Chase asked him. The sheets smelled like they'd been sitting on a shelf for a century but at least there was no odor of mildew.

"Linen closet." Wilson said. "There's a whole stack of sheets and blankets. Quilts, too. The only thing missing is pillows." Not having pillows sucked. But they had a house, beds, food and a farm to get back in shape. Wilson decided to be thankful for what they did have.

Wilson had sorted through the kitchens' amenities and had worked out a dinner for them all. With the last of the food rations, and from a half bag of flour he had found, "I'm going to bake some flat bread, and we'll have stew tonight. I even found some old tea bags." Thank god for pressure sealed jars.

Chase thought he'd share the most interesting thing he had done that day. "Foreman and I have chickens and goats." At Wilsons' round-eyed surprise, "But we have to save them for milk and eggs."

XXX

After breakfast of left-over bread and re-heated tea, a bright morning sun saw Chase checking beneath his hens' undersides for spotted eggs and Foreman looking in on the five goats they had managed to lure home with their clever chicken feed in a bucket ruse. Two of the female goats were fatter than the other and he guessed that the Billy had done his duty some months back and the Nanny goats were pregnant. That meant their teats ought to be filling up with milk. "What does goats milk taste like anyway?" He muttered.

He stared at the nattering creatures dubiously. He had no idea how to milk a goat. He had no idea how to lasso one either. Even if he had a rope. He heard shouting of triumph from the chicken house and saw Chase emerge with a small hand-full of eggs.

"Yeah, yeah." He waved him off. "Take them to House. The kids are hungry." Wishing he knew better what he was doing, he found a small stool in the big barn - one obviously made for squatting under an animals stomach and approached the fattest of the two fat Nanny goats. "Take it easy darlin'. Just want some of that good momma' juice."

Whenever he got to within three feet of her, she, having other ideas on the matter, would dodge past him and make for the other side of the pen. "Dammit!"

She kept up the game with the toddling human for a good ten minutes before Foreman threw the bucket to the ground with a string of swear words.

He looked around, hoping no one heard his uncharacteristic outburst. The yard was empty. Everyone was inside.

No. He saw a tiny figure out in the field. Far away in the field, just a stick among the shorter waves of wild grass. A stick standing very still and staring. At least he thought the stick was staring. It was impossible to tell from such a distance. Then the stick turned and began walking away in a hurry.

Foremans' heart pounded in fear. "Goddamn." He quickly walked into the house and through to the kitchen, not bothering to take off his shoes.

House and Wilson were busy coddling the eggs in some boiling water in a tin pot sitting atop the wood burning furnace. Chase was stoking the fire, trying to get it hotter.

They all turned startled faces to him when he came rushing in, his boots clumping without concern that there might be babies sleeping nearby.

He stared at them all. The four of them had traveled hard. They were tired, they needed rest. They wanted a place to build a future. And House was _pregnant! _He could pop anytime. Plus they had just arrived here not much more than twenty-four hours ago. Things were so much better here. A home, food, animals, shelter, warmth . . . he feared it was all about to end before it even got started.

His face grim, "We're not alone." Foreman told them. "There's someone out there."

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"Maybe we should find another place?" Chase suggested.

Wilson shook his head. "We can't. Even if House wasn't about to pop, we only have enough gas to go maybe another hundred miles. What if find we find nothing suitable?"

Foreman sat on the couch, every-so-often looking over toward the plywood they had fashioned as a door. Even with the cross bar they had quickly assembled in place since his shocking sighting of the furtive stranger, the door was thin and he did not feel particularly secure. "I don't know about you guys but even if we explored another fifty miles, leaving ourselves gas enough to get back in case we don't find anything, I'm _sick_ of moving. Back in New Jersey all we ever did was move."

Wilson paced, the worry on his face etched there by this new problem and his concern over House. "We can't go anywhere. At least, I can't. House is about to give birth. I mean he's real close. He laid down a while ago - in pain."

Chase asked, "From his leg or - "

"- Both." Wilson said. "I'm not even going to go to sleep tonight." He waved a hand toward the kitchen. "I've torn sheets and boiled up a sharp knife in case . . ."

They all understood. In case he needed to cut House again to accommodate the babys' entrance into their world which had just gotten a whole lot more complicated again.

Chase offered. "I think we ought to take shifts. Keep an eye out for . . .I don't know - what_ever_. Prowlers? A big, angry mutant with a cannon?"

"And do what if that or what_ever_ happens?" Foreman asked. "Someone decides to come here to steal, or just kick us out? - we have no weapons. I traded the last gun - the only gun - we had for House."

No one chastised him because no one regretted it at all.

Chase said. "At the risk of appearing like a bush whacking "Crocodile Dundee", I know how to build a long bow. I could start on it tomorrow. I'd have to go out and find the right tree limb and reeds and things and I don't relish doing that in the dark."

Wilson smiled but neither he nor Foreman made a joke of it. Foreman said, "Right now, I think we're all more impressed than amused."

Wilson said. "I think you guys ought to go to bed and get some sleep. I'll take the first watch. If House goes into labor, I'll wake you."

Foreman and Chase reluctantly went to bed.

Sharing a bed, they each, without even discussing it, shed their clothes and slaked the others' stress in a quick bit of sex. Foreman penetrated Chases' smooth young ass. It was the first time he had been inside the young man and it felt so good. Almost as good as fucking House. Almost. Not quite. Nothing even approached the hot, hedonistic, beast-like drive to fuck House. Giving it deep and hard to his delicious breed-mate, feeling his tight hot tunnel, shooting him full of his warm cum, impregnating him - the whole experience was, from beginning to end, something almost other-worldly. It was impossible to resist. It was the beginning of his life and would be the end of his existence. It was nothing if not the Law of his body and mind.

Nature wasn't kidding about repopulating the planet.

But Chase was soft and muscled, his skin smooth against his fingers. Foreman wrapped his big fist around Chases' hard-on and stroked him, all the while pumping him as thoroughly as possible while the worry of what was happening around them invaded his sexual thoughts un-invited again and again.

So he drove his cock into Chase again and again until he came with a silent, shaking shudder, and Chase came then too, shooting his warm wetness through his fingers.

With Chase, Foreman didn't feel the chemical insanity that fucking House gave him, that commanded him back to Houses' body over and over, but making love to Chase was warm and comforting and sexy. So he kissed him deeply before rolling off.

In the next room, House began to moan. By their mutual experiences in Laurents' hated facility, they had all come to learn to distinguish between a moan resulting from injury or ache and that of a man entering the pangs of child-birth. "It's House." Chase whispered in the dark.

"I know." Foreman said. It was time to get up. "He's having Wilsons' baby."

XXX

Part II ASAP


	2. Chapter 2

**RIDDLED WITH HEAVEN**

Part II

By GeeLady

(Sequel to _Gone With the World_)

Summary: Some will destroy Eden to reach Paradise.

Rating: M for Mature. **Slash**. Violence. **Rape**. Themes of **prejudice** and **intolerance.** Language. This is an _**MPreg!!**_

Pairing:House _plus_ Wilson/Foreman/Chase.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House and others to my hearts content. No fee's, no earnings,...just fun!

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_**"Whatever you are, be a good one." - Abraham Lincoln**_

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House felt the spasm slice across his abdomen and gripped Chases' fingers until they turned red. The younger man gasped. "He's got a powerful grip." He said to Wilson who was mesmerized by the incredible sight of their third child being born. Foreman had the babies tiny head in his large hands.

Watching the tiny purple and red skull slicked with blood and the dark, feathery hair plastered to the scalp poke out from between Houses' legs just below his carefully trussed up and pulled out of the way genitals, Wilson already knew he wanted another. Even after this one had not yet fully made his way into the world, he wanted more. Especially a second child that was all his own flesh. His and Houses'. Maybe even a third if he could convince House. They had three now, with this new child. Two more would make five. Somehow, even the vision of almost a half dozen children underfoot, it didn't seem like it would be enough.

But Wilson loved this child just being born and for now he was plenty. His own child. So much did he love him, instantly and without a seconds hesitation or doubt, he thought he might not breath again as the man he was. And he loved House deeply for bringing him this tiny baby.

They all did.

Wilson leaned over to kiss Houses' cheek. "I love you." He whispered into his ear. "I love you so much. Our son - God - you should _see_ him. He's so beautiful."

House was too sunk in the agony of involuntary abdominal undulation pushing the baby into the world, to pay attention to anything anyone said or did. All he could feel was pain and fullness and an agony of pressure at his perineum as he pushed and screamed until his third child slipped from his body into Foremans' steady fingers.

House managed to get a glance before the overpowering need to sleep claimed him. He looked up at Wilson with half closed eyes. "Is he okay? I . . .is he . . .healthy?"

Holding Houses' limp hand in his own, Wilson hovered while Foreman made a thorough examination of the newest member of their growing family. "He looks fine, House." Foreman said. "Go to sleep, babe'."

House was almost there but he wanted to know. "Who does he look like more?" He asked, his voice so weak it was a whisper.

Wilson kissed Houses' lips as his exhausted mate quickly succumbed to his bodys' demand for rest. "Well, I think he has my eyes." Wilson said.

Wilson held his new born while Foreman tied and cut the umbilical cord, then he wrapped the infant in a folded cotton sheet. The baby was having thoughts of sleep as well, and after a bit of mew-like crying, yawned and closed his eyes.

Already asleep, Houses' body swiftly passed the burst womb sac. Limp under their ministrations, House slept while Chase and Foreman lifted him off the bed, changed the sheets and cleaned him up using warm wet soapy rags. Packing a clean rolled strip of cloth between his legs to mop up any seeping blood, lastly they loosed the length of cloth used to keep his privates out of the way and lifted House back onto the soft mattress, covering him with quilts.

Wilson lay down beside him, the new baby between them and enjoyed himself watching both. The baby had his own wide eyes and hair color and Houses' fair complexion. Wilson was also astounded to see signs of his _brothers'_ chin in his son. Definitely more of his family in the boy than Houses'. He hoped House would not be too disappointed.

"Chase is baby-sitting." Foreman said as he re-entered the room after washing up. He had not really gotten a proper look at the new baby whose' tiny face was washed clean now, and his shock of dark hair had fluffed up above his head in a comical mop. His features were narrow and delicate, both his sire-father and birth-fathers' genetics there, and he sported a straight strong nose - clearly a feature he got from his sire-dad. All in all, a miniature Wilson.

"What are you going to call him?"

Though their new son looked more like him, he suddenly had no idea now what to name him. "I don't know." _All I know is I want another son as soon as possible! _Wilson felt a hard stirring in his loins even now. If it were up to him, he'd keep House bare footed and pregnant for the rest of his life.

Since the birth of his son, even in the last hour or so, his desire for House had increased three-fold. He wanted to wrap Houses' legs around his back and make another baby, but that would not be possible for a week at least. It felt like an eternity.

Wilson sighed. What name would House have given him? He wished House was awake to ask. "I was thinking about Mathias. Or maybe Aaron. My mom would have liked David or Daniel."

"They say a child becomes who his name means." Foreman said.

"Who says?"

"Well, my mother really. She gave us strong names, like Eric. You know, Eric the Red? A powerful historical figure."

Wilson didn't want his son named after a cold, faceless man from long ago, who's fame and purpose had vanished like the years. His brothers' middle name was Lewis, a name he didn't like that much, but . . .

"Lee." Wilson said. He looked down at his son and saw that name fit well. He could easily be a _Lee_. It suited him. "Yeah. _Lee_. I'm calling him Lee."

XXX

After a week of seeing no more stick figure lurking in the far fields, the three dads began to relax again.

House had healed up and, in addition to his daily routine of boiling up goats' milk and coddling egg albumin and yolks for his three babies, they all had their work each day. He also changed and washed diapers every day, never forgetting to complain about his "wash-basin" hands, until Chase made him, and Wilson, up a boiled down mixture of bees wax, goat-milk-fat from his soap making and sunflower seed oil.

House had accepted the unexpected gift with quiet astonishment. "You should have worked for Loreal and become a millionaire." Which Chase recognized as Housian for_ thank you. _

Chase kissed him._ "_You're welcome." Wiggling his own cream softened hands to the three little babies, all still far too young to recognize the gesture, he leaned down to look at them and he was delighted by the reward of a collection of baby grimaces that he was positive were smiles just for him.

"They know who I am!" Chase marveled at his incredibly intelligent children. "They're geniuses."

House chuckled. "If they are, they didn't get it from you. They recognize your face, sweetness, they don't _know_ you yet. Or me. We're the daddies, they see us all the time, so we're familiar."

Chase picked up the one with his own eye color, a mystery shade falling somewhere between hazel and green. "I was hoping his eyes would stay blue."

House said. "And I was hoping for a girl." The odds were heavily against both.

In between keeping a handle on repairs to the animal structures and the interior of the home, Foreman found himself making heavy use of the hand cream as well, his palms calloused at the end of a week of rough boards, tools and yard work.

While he entertained the babies with a home-made rattle, some tiny pebbles he'd tossed inside a plastic cup and closed over with a tied on piece of thick plastic, House entertained himself by watching Foreman replace the livingroom window with a borrowed glass from one of the two upstairs windows.

Foreman learned on the fly and, with a bit of Chases' tutelage, hammered into place some carefully measured wood pieces to frame their livingroom window in such a way as to make it tight and free from drought. The pane-less window upstairs he boarded over with wood outside and in, stuffing dried moss in between for insulation. The upstairs was made darker but the living room again had natural light.

Chase almost exclusively took over caring for the animals, feeding, milking, gathering eggs and daily mucking out the pens.

In between keeping up with cleaning the few clothes they had which got soiled every day from the dirty, hard sweat of farm work, Wilson had a household to keep straight and neat and all the meals to cook.

House had his hands full feeding, changing and dotting on their three children. Old professions die-hard, however, and if one of the babies sneezed or coughed or looked at him strangely, House would be off trying to diagnose whichever disease he had worried himself skinny into believing his child had contracted, driving them all crazy with his unfounded panicking and theories.

Wilson and Foreman discussed it one day over a late night young Spruce-needles cup of tea. (It was something Chase insisted they all drink daily, the vitamin C content a must for their so far fruit-light, and therefore almost citrus free diet. Chase had in fact anointed himself Woodsman and, as soon as he had time enough, planned on a forage into the mountain sides to dig up some wild Straw, Choke and June Berry bushes to transplant into a patch of rich soil he had located and prepared not too far from the main house.

But the berry shrubs would probably not initially take well to the transplant so Chase also planned on dragging Foreman on a weekly berry picking expedition to gather as much fruit as possible to preserve or to dry for over the winter months.

"You know," Wilson said, "eventually one of us _will_ get sick. Even out here the kids might still get exposed to chicken pox, measles, or get bitten and catch rabies. House is right. Eventually one of us is going to get ill and we have almost no medicine of any kind. A few bandages, some alcohol . . ."

Foreman nodded. "I talked to Chase about it. He's a walking talking survival book. He thinks he knows some plants and roots that'll serve as substitutes for some things like aspirin or antihistamine. He said we ought to set up a chem' lab somewhere, so we can cook some of this stuff up. Do you know what the man made yesterday when he appropriated your kitchen? _Pemmican_! I didn't even know it was food until he made me taste it."

"And he boiled up the last of the rose-hips." Wilson said. "I think he spent a lot of time on a farm as a kid."

"Yeah. He's been drawing on his Down Under Jungle Boy experiences since we got here." Foreman said, chuckling about having their very own Tarzan. Though, even as they needled him about it, no one hinted that his knowledge wasn't also highly appreciated. Without Chase they probably wouldn't have chickens or goats or their precious eggs, milk and, eventually once their numbers increased, domestic meat.

"I was raised in the ghetto." Foreman said. "We had ant farms."

Wilson smiled. "Well, I was raised in the city and now I'm a farmers' wife. I wear the apron anyway." Wilson looked down at himself and realized he had not bothered taking off the small section of towel he had wrapped around his waist to preserve his shirt and pants from the flour and berry juice remnants sticking to the counter and almost every clean surface after Chase had finished baking, leaving the mess for him to clean up. He hadn't the energy the night before to bother and hadn't all day either, figuring he may as well clean up only once, after all the days cooking chores were finished.

Finally the kitchen was clean again. "I miss my desk." Wilson said. He imagined it now, all the pencils in their holder, his stapler in its proper place, the neatly stacked papers. "I never thought I'd say that." He looked over at Foreman. "I didn't like _paper_-work." He stood and stretched.

"Going to bed?" Foreman looked at his watch, wondering each time he did when the day would come when it stopped ticking. "I guess it is late."

"I'm going to see the kids first. 'Nite."

Foreman recognized that exaggerated stretch. "Right." Foreman wagered Wilson was going to pay House a special kind of visit too and decided then and there - "I'm going with you."

House was healed up and they all knew via their very active libidos whenever they were in close proximity to him, that he was again ready for pregnancy. Foreman could feel his heart rate increase with every footfall on the stairs. On the way, Chase picked up on the intoxicating mix of testosterone and other hormones pouring from them in a sexual cascade, and joined his mates in the room occupied by House and the babies.

While the babies slept in their tiny wooden boxes for cribs, for a good part of the night, Foreman, Wilson and Chase made love to House and each other.

-

-

-

"I'm pregnant." House snarled at Foreman as he walked by him. Seated at the kitchen table, Foreman looked up and couldn't prevent the wide grin that broke out on his features. To that House added, "_Again."_

Foreman, eating some of the breakfast flat bread Wilson had learned to perfect, reached out and patted House on his belly as he stood there, already imagining the seductive swelling that would start to show in under a week. "Heh-heh - oh yeah! - another baby in the oven." He quipped. He chewed contentedly. The bread was almost as good as a yeast raised, oven baked variety. By using goats milk, Wilson managed to make it quite fluffy, like thick pizza dough.

Foreman stared at Houses lower abdomen with a delightful leer, thoroughly pleased. "Hallelujah." He couldn't wait to see the bulge. As far as he was concerned, House pregnant and showing was the sexiest sight on the green, green Earth.

House saw him look. "Don't bother, Casanova. It's too soon to play quarter bounce." Besides himself and Foreman, the kitchen was empty. "Where's the other daddy _dicks?"_

Foreman was suddenly filled with visions of half naked House lying flat on the table, his sweetly swollen tightness exposed to their lips and tongues as they drank of alcohol and saluted their sex skills. For a reason Foreman couldn't explain, the weird vision filled him with longing. But he didn't take his eyes off his pregnant mate.

"I'm one of the daddies. I can look if I want to. Chase is outside and I think Wilsons' in the bathroom."

House sat down in a chair opposite Foreman. Even only at forty-eight hours into the pregnancy, already his body was requesting more rest, more sitting down. He couldn't remember the last time his batteries were at full charge. He couldn't remember the last time he wasn't carrying around one of his mates pending offspring and, if he was fully honest with himself, he couldn't recall what it felt like to _not_ be pregnant.

Miffed about being the only pregger in the whole house and thus the only one who understood the cravings, tummy tenderness and emotional upheavals all stemming from his unique physical condition, House stated his frustration by rudely demanding. "Any coffee!?"

His smiling mate didn't turn an eyelash. "Of the Chicory/barley variety." Foreman got up and put the kettle back over the heat for him. "Even if we did have the real thing, you can't have any with my baby on the way."

"I can dream, can't I? And it might not be your. It could be Chases' or Wilsons'. And, just for the record, it's mine first." He didn't know why he was so annoyed by Foremans' proud pappa peacock act. He stared at the floor, his brows pinched.

Foreman fixed a cup for him without complaint, placing the cup in front of him and kissing his cheek. "Hey." He clutched Houses' face in between his work swollen fingers. "You and baby? Perfection." The words seemed to have the desired effect and House appeared a little less put out.

Foreman kissed him on the lips very tenderly. "I gotta' go help Chase."

The frown returned. "I _just_ got up."

"It's ten-thirty."

"Then _you_ carry the baby! You kept me up half the night - _again. _I don't want to sit here alone all morning. The babies are napping."

Foreman smiled, remembering the previous nights lascivious activities. Now that House was pregnant, his drive to have sex with him only went up. "Sorry but it'll have to be all _day_. We're repairing the barn roof. Winter's coming." He slipped out the door.

XXX

Wilson complained, "I've got a lot of bottling to do today."

"Well, I need a walk. I've been cooped up in here all day." House laced up an old pair of sneakers he found in the front closet. Then were almost two sizes too big, but he stuffed a sock in the end of each one and they fit better. He ignored Wilsons' harried expression.

"For how long? I've got to start lunch in an hour." Wilson watched him slip on a jacket that was much too big for him. Another rescue from another nameless closet. The house had a lot of them.

"Not long. An hour. Okay? I'm going nuts stuck in here all the time. Can't you handle the boys for one lousy hour?"

Wilson called after him. "Just don't go far."

-

-

-

It was glorious getting out and away from the confines of the house. And, as much as he loved the kids, a breather from their constant care was a hard earned freedom. Even if it was only for an hour. Two maybe.

House found a few June berries he'd come to recognize from Chases' descriptions. Chase urged them all to pick them, and other varieties of berry, when and where ever they encountered them. To stuff their pockets full if they had nothing else in which to carry them.

Today, House ignored that particular admonition and saved his energy for whatever fun might be had just being alone and unfettered, and free from his mates probing fingers and hungry penises.

House figured he'd walked about a half mile through the sparsely laid out Spruce and Birch-wood forest that lay to the East and South of the house. To the West and North lay the wide expanse of formerly cultivated alfalfa fields time had turned into a sea of golden wild wheat. Beyond them lay the foothills of the Northern Rockies.

The sun showered through the branches and fell on the ground cover of dead leaves and fallen nursery trees. Squirrels protested his presence with high pitched chattering and Whisky-Jacks called out while hopping from branch to branch overhead, hoping for a tidbit of food from the wandering human.

A dark, out of place shape snuck into Houses' field of vision, off to his left. A long, low horizontal mass that was a blemish on the unbroken and mostly vertical, flowing lines of trunks and branches. House turned his head to investigate. A mound of dirt. He walked over, picking his way through the undergrowth and pushing willow bush branches aside with his cane.

It was a large mound about eight feet long, five feet wide and two feet deep and was neither natural nor new. Already yellow grasses had rooted and a small spruce tree had taken hold at one end, having sprung up thick and healthy from the rich, dark soil clearly put there by human hands.

House looked closer. Some of the tiny trees' root system was exposed. House leaned in to cover the naked shoots back up and save the sapling from its own ignorance. But he stopped short when he realized what he was looking at was not a root or a twig. Setting aside his cane, House crouched down as best he could on his one good leg and brushed more of the dirt away. The - whatever it was - was bleached white. He pulled it free from the soil with little effort and examined it under his nose.

A tiny bone.

It looked human.

House dropped it on the soil mound and dug around a little more, coming up with a second, then a third, then some pebble sized pieces, sharp edged and of various shapes. Eight or nine more twig like bones of different lengths later, he put them together on the dark soil, arranging them in as close a shape to their original pattern that House, having been a doctor, from experience knew. When he finished, he stared at them for a good minute or so, a little light headed by his discovery.

House looked around at the green, inviting forest and it now felt far less free and living. He felt suddenly exposed to it and confined by it at the same time. How silly of him to think of it only as a place of life and sun and welcoming spirit.

House stuffed the collection of bones in his pocket and forgot all about his enjoyable afternoon walk.

-

-

-

"It's human, obviously." Chase said.

They all sat around the kitchen table and stared at the thing House had brought home with him and reassembled on the table before their curious eyes.

"And it belongs to a baby." House said. He'd been queasy ever since returning with the offending thing. Offending because it put a label on where they were and their lives now and possibly future lives also. "There's a huge mound out there. Maybe the people who lived here didn't go anywhere? Maybe they're just dead in the forest? Maybe there's more mounds? For all we know there's dozens."

"Let's not get nuts." Foreman counseled. "Until we know what we're actually dealing with - if anything but a old skeleton."

Houses' hormonal influenced worry gene would not be quelled. "I knew this place was too good to be true."

"Look." Foreman said, standing and donning his warm coat. "Chase and Wilson and I'll go out and dig it up. Maybe whoever lived here before lost a baby and the birth mom - or dad depending how long it's been - and they were buried in the forest."

-

-

-

-

Foreman and Chase bent their backs to it. The soil was fairly loose. "Well, it's not a lot of years old for sure." Chase said. His next turn of a shovel brought up a shoulder blade and he stopped. "Got an adult here." He said. They removed more of the dirt until they found more of the human remains. An almost complete skeleton they piled to one side. Wilson laid the bones out, piecing them togther like a gruesome jigsaw puzzle. The only part missing was the skull.

"Definitely a male by the width and shape of the pelvic bone. The bones are strong looking, too, no arthritis or pits. Length and health of the femur puts him at maybe late twenties, early thirties when he died."

"How'd he die is my question." Foreman remarked and dug his shovel in again. The tip struck a smooth object and he pried it loose. Chase scooped a skull from the soil. It was missing the mandible and its eye sockets were caked with black dirt. Chase stared at the backside of it, then turned it over for the benefit of his mates' eyes.

A small, round hole with a crack radiating out from it was in the direct center of the back of the skull. Chase said soberly, "Don't look now, but something tells me it wasn't natural causes."

"Jesus." Foreman racked his brain to think of a possible reason someone would have been killed execution style. "Maybe he was blue eye? You know, back when they didn't know about the mutation? Back when blue eyes were just rounded up and slaughtered."

It was a reasonable enough assumption. Wilson felt sick. "House doesn't hear about this, okay? He doesn't need to be reminded of his days on the run or that a blue eye was executed out here. All he needs to know is we found a _female _skeleton. We tell him there's a _mother_ and her dead child buried here." Wilson tried the lie on for size. "She probably died during Outbreak and the surviving members of her family buried her and moved away to a safety camp. We tell House we re-buried _her_ and that's the end of it."

Chase didn't like it. "Are you sure? I mean, I . . .don't want to _lie_ to him and . . .and what about the baby bones?" Chase asked.

Wilson spread his hands. "Her child died with her."

"House saw the bones, Wil', they were unusually small. He'll know they came from a BM."

"Not necessarily and he didn't see all of them." Foreman said. "We tell him it was a pre-mature female womb-birth brought on by the virus. Baby was under-developed and probably still-born."

Chase wasn't comfortable. "You're guys are awfully _good_ at this lying thing." He looked at Foreman. "What if this mound of bones has something to do with the person you saw? Maybe this property belongs to him?"

Foreman shook his head. "I'm not sure what I saw. It was hot. I was tired. It might have been an animal. Or nothing."

"Or it might have been a someone who didn't want you to see his face. I think we should tell House."

"-House is _pregnant." _Foreman reminded him. "No stress, Chase, remember? He could lose the baby."

Chase stopped and considered it, then nodded. A miscarriage was always a worry with House because of his history of them, his over-all precarious health and his age. "Right. Yeah, okay." He reluctantly agreed. Probably it was the safest thing to do.

They dug a hole and dropped the bones back in it, covering them over with dirt. The unpleasant task complete, they walked in a grim line home, each with their own thoughts of what the skeletons might, beyond their agreed upon lie, mean.

But keeping any speculation from Houses' ears was in his best interests. House and their children had to be protected.

It was the right thing to do.

XXX

Part III ASAP!!

NOTE: I've been getting a few public - but more private - reviews, informing me of the "science" - or lack there-of - in Gone With the World.

I would like to take a moment to remind my readers that Gone With the World contains a clear statement in the heading that the medical situations and "science" in it are fictional. Some of the "science", if it could so be called, in GWtW is inaccurate and sometimes a bit silly. Alas - it is true!

Having said that, many of my readers' suggestions have been helpful and corrected me where my own research, or my mis-understanding of the research, led me astray, and that information I appreciate (for example, the Y and X chromosomes and which gender owns which - in GWtW I actually had it backwards!) Thanks to a sharp-eyed reader for that one.

However, to be continuously reminded that I am writing "nonsense" is not really necessary and a trifle redundant. Trust me, dear readers, I am aware.

I assure you I take great pains and spend considerable time on research to try and ensure that the content of my stories are medically plausible - _unless otherwise stated as at the chapter I beginning/heading of Gone With the World._


	3. Chapter 3

**RIDDLED WITH HEAVEN**

Part III

By GeeLady

(Sequel to _Gone With the World_)

Summary: Some will destroy Eden to reach Paradise.

Rating: M for Mature. **Slash**. Violence. **Rape**. Themes of **prejudice** and **intolerance.** Language. This is an _**MPreg!!**_

Pairing:House _plus_ Wilson/Foreman/Chase.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House and others to my hearts content. No fee's, no earnings,...just fun!

**-**

**-**

_**"The future has a way of arriving unannounced."**_

_George Will._

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XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Because everything was okay, House continued with forays into the surrounding woods. Not daily but almost. His mates said there was nothing to worry about and he believed them. So six days into his pregnancy, House went for his bi-weekly walk.

By habit he made his way back to the dirt mound, wrapping his thick coat around him and the rapidly growing child in his belly. At one week, he was still almost two weeks away from delivering but his body was already diverting a greater volume of the oxygen rich blood in his veins to his lower abdomen and the early frost that got in under his jacket when ever the wind whipped itself up was making him shiver. He zipped the coat up as far as it would go and turned up the collar.

The mound was right where he had left it. The fellows had re-buried her, they said, and she was undisturbed.

It was a nameless woman, lying there in the forest, dead from a childbirth gone wrong and he was not to worry about it. She was a stranger and gone for several years at least, and her baby was dead too, but that made House all the more curious about her.

Being pregnant himself again, and three children alive and growing because of his body, made them kin somehow - she and him. No doubt, House told himself, it was hormones emotionally kicking his ass all over the country-side but he felt that if he visited her enough, he might come to understand better what might have happened to her. How had her birth gone wrong? He was Diagnostician with no evidence to examine, so, yeah, he knew it was hormones doing the talking.

This was a peaceful place, though, and he liked coming here. To his mates, her having been a woman and also dead somehow made them all "safe". Wilson had certainly said the word enough times. Wilson was almost as nuts with the hormones of impending fatherhood as he was.

Because everything was "okay", it meant regular walks alone were fine. Even though sympathy-hormonal Wilson vehemently protested, he even more strongly insisted and since being pregnant gave him license to be a demanding pain in the ass, House got what he wanted.

"House!" Wilson had pleaded with him but, in the end, had ceded to defeat.

House smiled. As long as he had the all the baby making parts, he would win every time. There were some decided benefits to being the mom-guy.

The little tree he had rescued from soil erosion was doing well. Certainly better in here than it would have in the cooling fall fields constantly buffeted by the wind. House reached down and made sure the soil around it was well packed down by its fragile roots. The tiny spruce quivered under his touch.

"You must be living at the McKurkin place."

House spun around as fast as his crippled leg on a cane allowed.

The man who spoke was approximately seventy years old. He was small of stature, white of hair, wore a thread-bare old red checkered hunting jacket and green snow pants. He was also blank of expression and wouldn't have passed within three miles of threatening if not for the long barreled rifle he held in his hands. The dangerous end was pointed down and slightly to the side but the old guys' left hand was on the stock and his right fingers tickled the trigger.

House went from feeling secure to exquisitely vulnerable and he hoped the sane looking old fellow was just that. Once he had gathered control of his senses at seeing a total stranger out in the forest, he asked, "M-McKurkin?"

"Yeah. The brick house." The gun barrel tipped down a bit, indicating the burial mound. "You come here often? It's nothing but a devils' coffin, you know."

House stared, paying less attention to the mans' words than the black depths of the rifle barrel that bobbed around less than twenty feet from where he stood. "Sorry -what?"

"The abominations." The mans' tone betray some irritation at what he saw as Houses' obvious ignorance. He waved the rifle in the direction of the dirt pile. "The dead perversion and its hatchling."

House realized the fellow was talking about the skeletons in the life-springing spoil between them. "Um. No. I was checking . . .on the tree." House pointed to his tiny green friend. House thought how funny it was that a man with a lethal weapon pointed in his general direction could encourage such rapid and unsolicited truth.

"New folks in the McKurkin place, huh?"

House had a feeling that the old dude didn't hold with them just moving in like they had and had a sneaking suspicion that earning old fellows' initial approval might be a good idea.

"How many o' you living there now?"

Their brick house with the warmth and the children nestled inside it. "Um. Four." He didn't mention the kids. For all he knew, this old freak was a . . ._freak_. He could be a cannibal or a psycho collector of tiny children. "We're trying to put it back together."

The old guy nodded, like a judge listening to testimony. "Good. That's good. We don't need anything other than wholesome-ness around here. But at least there's no more abominations." He cleared his throat like a man asking the most important question anyone had ever asked for a thousand years. "You're all righteous ones aren't ya'? Good souls? A-waiting deliverance? You're not with _them,_ are you?"

Having no idea what he would be saying _Yes_ or _No_ to, House decided it was better not to risk being wrong and instead asked, "What abominations?"

"Guess you weren't around then. You didn't know him. Or his devil-spawn and the brown demons that made it. World's filling up with them you know. Browns are fine, 'less they get with the sinners." He straightened proudly. "_I'm_ a Brown."

House felt less informed than he had before he asked the question. "With_ "them"_?" House shook his head a bit. "_Who _didn't I know?"

"The Blue-Eyes." He said it with a curl of distaste on his lip and House was suddenly whole-heartedly grateful that they were both standing in shadow.

"The perverted creatures God has seen fit to curse the Earth with."

"Oh?" House looked at the burial mound, confusion on his features and a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Oh - _him._ No, I. . .I didn't know him, uh _it. _We're . . .new."

The old fellow turned half way around, ready to walk away. "Well, see you, young fella. Got my deer to kill. We'll be around to visit presently."

Houses' heart started a scary dance in his chest. "_We_?"

"The townsfolk. The Mayor, Sheriff and the good souls of New Dawn." The gun barrel seemed to do as much talking as he did and he pointed the barrel in the general direction of the gently undulating slopes of the Rocky foothills not ten miles to the North-West. "Settlement up yonder." The old fellow was casually disappearing into the trees, hunting his kill, his voice fading between the branches.

House couldn't help it. "Which good citizen are you?"

"Ordained Deputy Johnson."

House waited until the old creep was good and gone then hurried home as fast as he could with a limp and a cane at his side, clutching one hand to the "abomination" in his belly.

XXX

"You should have told me the dead guy was a dead _guy_." House shouted at Wilson, then turned his frazzled nerves on Foreman and Chase. "Those bones belonged to a Blue Eye. To someone like _me!_ I want to know how he died? I want to know how the _baby_ died."

Chase threw his co-conspirators a self-righteous look of I-told-you-so. "We don't know how the baby died. We didn't find all the bones." Chase said.

"But you _do_ know how the father died." House said.

Foremans' expression asked the _How-do-you-know-we-know? _that his mouth didn't say.

House answered him. "Because if you didn't, or if it looked like a natural death, you would have had no reason to conceal from me that the dead man was a _man_, or a blue eyed man. You lied _twice_."

Wilsons' stomach did flip flops. "He was shot."

"You mean murdered?"

Wilson nodded.

"Great." House scolded them, like he used to do to his fellowships when they showed any sign of blatant ignorance. House turned to the younger member of that former team. "I _expect_ lying from Chase." He threw a hand in Foremans' direction. "But at least you used to tell me the truth."

Chase protested for both of them. "Hang on. We were worried about the baby. We didn't want you going through any stress and maybe miscarrying."

"Right." House said, his insides still a bundle of blind butterflies at the memory of looking down the black depths of another gun barrel. "Well, no need to apologize then. Having a gun pointed at me was a real _good_ time."

House, suddenly faint, slumped into a kitchen chair and ran a nervous hand down his face.

Wilson stared at the floor, arms crossed with guilt. "If we had told you, you _still_ would have gone out there."

Foreman overlooked the yelling and checked his lovers' pulse at his throat. "You _wanna'_ miscarry?" He asked House. "You need to calm down."

House nodded. "He called Blue Eyes abominations. I suspect we may have moved into a politically incorrect neighborhood."

Foreman looked at Wilson. "We need to go visit that settlement. Check around and see if there's a road map somewhere in the house."

"Visit them? " Wilson chirped. "Are you kidding?"

"We need to find out what we're dealing with. If this place isn't safe, I'd like to know sooner than later." Foreman looked at Chase. "You stay here with House and the kids?" Chase nodded and Foreman added. "If they hate Blue Eyes, who knows how they might feel toward hazel."

-

-

-

-

Early the following morning, House watched with misgivings his mates lacing their boots and buttoning up their coats. Foreman retrieved his good long knife from the kitchen drawer and slipped it into the length of his boot. He looked at Wilson. "You never know what we'll encounter. Or who."

"Be _careful_!" House said angrily but with eyes full of worry. "The friendly old psychotic righteously ordained deputy was carrying a fucking cannon."

They left and Chase sat down at the table with his freaked out, pale and shaking mate. "Sorry we lied. We were just worried about the baby. And you."

House waved away any recriminations Chase might have been expecting. Bitter guilt-tripping was pointless. One thing House had come to appreciate, even it sometimes stemmed from faulty reasoning, is people often did stupid things out of love. "I _told_ you this place was too good to be true."

XXX

Wilson kept his eyes to the ground and simply followed Foremans' lead. "You sure we should be doing this? Wouldn't it be better to minimize our contact with these people?'

Foreman walked beside and slightly ahead of his partner. "You know what the "ordained" deputy told House. These lovely townsfolk plan on a neighborly visit to our farm in the very near future. I for one want to be prepared for anything. We have to know how many there are, what kind of weapons they have and how likely it is they're going to leave us alone. From the dead Blue Eye and his baby beneath that pile of dirt, I'm thinking not too likely."

Wilson was good with simply packing up and heading the hell away from there in any direction and as soon as possible. "We could all pile into the one car. That way we have an almost full tank and that'll get us far enough." _Far enough from here anyway. _

"House is pregnant. He has maybe twelve days before he gives birth. Next time, we might not be able to find any decent port in the storm and he'll end up bringing our fourth child into the world on the shoulder of a highway." Foreman just didn't hate the idea of more travel, he also hated the idea of having to give up what they'd so far worked for - a home and a new beginning, a place to raise their children and live with a semblance of freedom. "If you're worried, don't be. I grew up around people like this."

"Murderers?"

"Intolerance. The only place we, and yes I do mean black people, were accepted was in our own neighborhood. I worked my ass off to get out of it and there's no way I'm going to let my kids grow up in a place like it." If it was possible, he was willing to fight to keep that silent promise he had made to them.

His old neighborhood was long ago and in another world now dead. But the local people had discovered a new minority to hate and such confined hate, Foreman knew, tended to bond people into a narrow vision and a terrifying, though unifying, purpose: _Us good. You bad -_ _And God is with Us!_

"And if we find they aren't thrilled with us as neighbors?"

That's where Foreman ran into a snag. What could they do really? "We re-educate them." Though he had no idea how they could possibly back-up such bravado.

"I don't see why we didn't just drive."

"'Cause if we _do_ have to get the hell out of here, we need all the gas that's left. Besides, you want someone to take a liking to probably the only running, gassed up car in the area?"

Foreman decided the first, best stop was the Sheriffs' office.

It was hardly an office. The "town" was a loosely assembled series of thrown togther shacks and tiny houses set in a clearing of forest about a mile up the old gravel mountain road. From the seven year old map Wilson had dug up in the attic, it had been the only road that Foreman knew continued on from the secondary highways' end into the foothills, so they had followed it.

The haunt was a left-over from some commune-type farm. A discarded community from an earlier decade. The last holdings of some small religious break-away fundamentalist group perhaps or even a hippie commune from the days of love and mother nature's silver seed.

They walked unmolested passed several old shacks sitting on hard packed dirt. There was no sidewalk, not even of wooden boards to keep their feet out of the mud, and no town center. A few people were out and about. One old fellow carried a bucket of water and two middle-aged men were hauling chopped wood on their backs. All were too occupied to even notice them. Two or three others appeared but clearly were all on their way somewhere and since the day was cool and damp no one was out for a casual stroll. Only one took the time to look over at the two strangers.

The Sheriffs' office was nothing more than a four walled cabin of slightly better repair than most. It had the remains of white paint and flower-boxes on the windows filled with dry, cracked dirt that hadn't seen the human touch for years.

Foreman knocked on the door. To his surprise a pleasant looking young man answered the door. He had dark, longish hair swept back and tucked behind ears held close to his skull, and was wearing faded grey pants and a plain brown cotton shirt, like the type a package delivery fellow might have worn back when there were jobs and a weekly pay cheque. "Hi." He looked at them, a little startled. Foreman imagined the town didn't see many visitors. "May I help you?" The young man politely asked.

For a few seconds, Foreman just stared at the man. He was hardly older than twenty and thus far, though his face had not seen a razor in years, the stubble on his chin was struggling for all its might to become something other than juvenile face-fuzz. "Um. Hi. My name's F- Eric and this is Jimmy." Foreman thought their first names would be more friendly and less formal. It had been a sound judgement call and put the other fellow quickly at ease. "Are you the Sheriff?"

"Yes. I'm Sheriff Jess Johnson." He peered at them through two very large, deeply set and beautiful brown eyes below thin, well defined brows. All in all, he had a fine boned, almost delicate face. "I haven't seen you around here before." He stretched out his hand, though, in order to shake theirs - an encouraging sign of open-ness. "You must be from further - "

"-East, yeah."

"Jersey? New York?"

"Maine." Foreman lied. He hoped there had been no Breeding Facility in Maine or if there had been, that this Sheriff hadn't heard of it.

"Whatcha' doing' out this way?" His question meant: _Why would anyone in their right mind leave Maine to come here?_

"Well, like most, we lost almost everything in the Outbreak. Wives and families - homes. We figured. . . a fresh start, you know?" 

That seemed to do the trick and the young fellow relaxed enough to step back and usher them inside. "Yeah. Things are hard all over I guess. Funny. I was thinking about heading East eventually."

Wilson asked. "Oh?"

The fellow rubbed the top of his head like the decision was heavily on his mind. "Yeah. If I can." He gestured to two straight chairs of suspect repair and Foreman and Wilson gratefully seated themselves.

Foreman cleared his throat. "Sheriff, do you have a deputy, um - actually we don't know his name - but he paid our farm a visit a couple days ago. Called himself an "Ordained Deputy"."

Sheriff blew out a lung full of air. "Oh. That was Robert Hayes. He's no deputy of mine, 'cause I don't have any. He lives down the way along with about half the townsfolk. Set himself up as some sort of best man to the man in charge."

Wilson said, "I thought you were the man in charge?"

"Of the town. I'm officially the Sheriff, but a good half of the people follow a man named Colin Raithe. He, uh, likes to think of himself as some sort of Second Coming or something, "God's Beacon of Hope and Light" or some such shit."

Wilson asked, "He paid us a visit. Kind of scared a member of our family and he - Raithe that is - had a rifle. Um, should we be worried?"

"No. He's basically harmless." Though Johnson sounded more confident than he looked.

"Basically?" Foreman decided it was time for some truth. "Sheriff, there's a grave near our property. We . . .were doctors in the old life and- "

"-Doctors? If there's one thing we could use in this town, it's a doctor. Where did you say you were living?"

"McKurkin property. That's what the old gu - what Raithe called it." Foreman continued. "A member of our family found some . . baby bones and, look, we decided to dig it up. It kind of scared us, so we wanted to make sure, that everything's . _. okay_ around here. And that it's okay if we stay on at the McKurkin property. We don't want any trouble."

Johnson frowned, skipping over everything but, "A grave?" He shook his head, "I don't know anything about that."

"We found a skeleton of an adult and part of a skeleton of a baby. The adult had been shot."

Sheriff seemed disinclined to assume there was anything suspect in the discovery. "Shot? Well, Outbreak and all that you know. Lotsa' Blue Eyes were killed outright that first year."

"I know but this adult had been shot in the back of the head. Execution like. And the bones didn't look that old."

"Well, how old do you think he was?"

"That's not what I meant. I mean the skeleton was of a man in his twenties maybe, but the bones themselves seemed like they'd been in the ground less than a year."

"How do you know?"

"There are ways to tell. Color, smell . . ."

"Well, I don't know anything about a grave or an unauthorized killing."

Wilson sat up a tiny bit straighter. "You mean there are _authorized_ killings?"

"Not by me, but yes, of course."

Foreman and Wilson looked at each other on that last word. Foreman asked, "Under what criteria does someone get put to death? Murder? Arson? Rape? . . ."

"No. No one here does things like that. This town may have a few oddballs but it has order. I mean that, when-ever they find a Blue Eye, they eliminate him just like anywhere."

Foreman swallowed but carefully kept his voice level. "You mean this Colin Raithe or Hayes guy kills blue eyed men? That it's officially sanctioned?"

"Not officially, at least not by me. In my opinion they oughta' be, I dunno', rounded up maybe - quarantined - but _killed_? That's a little extreme for my taste. They can't help what they are."

"This corpse in the grave near our house has a dead man in it by way of a hole in the back of his _skull_." Wilson didn't mean to sound so critical but his emotions were getting the better of him. And with images of pregnant House being rounded up and marched through the woods - "And a partial skeleton of a _baby._ Probably the dead mans' baby that was murdered too. So, un-officially, you're saying that this guy Raithe gets away with murder?"

Johnson stared at them with round eyes. "You mean, you think this baby was . ..his? The Blue's baby?"

"Of course." Foreman said. "Blue Eyes, blue-eyed _men,_ can get pregnant. Evolution, nature's answer to every female on the planet having been wiped out. Blue Eyes are the future of the human race."

"Well, they're not considered the future of anything in New Dawn." Johnson lowered his voice. "That man was probably killed and probably by one of Hayes' so-called ordained deputies. Raithes' followers see him as some kind of Messiah here to lead them to righteousness and the heavenly paradise. He's a nut-job. He thinks Blue Eyes are the Devils' spawn and Gods' curse upon the Earth."

Johnson stood and paced a little, his weird but orderly world suddenly topsy turvy with the arrival of the strangers. Foreman suddenly felt a little sorry for the kid because he was just a kid trying to do his duty surrounded by people older and, Foreman didn't doubt, far meaner than him.

"They think we're living in Armageddon." Johnson explained. "If that Blue Eye was a baby carrying Blue Eye living at the McKurkin ranch, Hayes must have found out and sent one of his men to kill him."

Wilson was nauseous. "If that's the case, why the hell didn't you stop him?"

The young Sheriff looked at him with eyes full of fright. "I may be the Sheriff but do I look like a one-man army? The only people in New Dawn with any real authority is Hayes and his deputies. He's also the only one, by the way, with bullets for his guns. I used all mine hunting to keep myself and the townsfolk fed. The folk who don't follow Hayes that is. Up until now I hadn't heard about any shooting of anything other than a white-tail."

Foreman didn't like the sound of things in New Dawn. "So you are the elected, official authority but Hayes has all the power?"

Johnson pursed grim lips and said with irony. "Yeah. Just like the old, old times, isn't it? I told you, I keep the town order, but I aint the damn government. Last I heard, Blue Eyes were marked for systematic extinction."

Wilson wanted to get back home as quickly as possible. "Well, now they're our only hope for survival."

Johnson saw them to his door. It was only four short steps across the room. "Look. If you want me to, I can do some looking into this but," he paused, "but you said it yourself, the man is dead and so's his baby. These folks, on this end of town, don't want any trouble and I aim to keep it that way if I can-"

"-Raithe said he was going to pay us a visit. Tomorrow I think." Foreman said.

"I can't stop him from doing that. It's still a free country." Johnson offered. "But if you want I'll come along when he does."

"Foreman." Wilson interrupted, "Let's go. It's getting dark." It wasn't really. Not yet, but he was itching to get home, pack, and get House and the kids the hell out of Dodge just as fast as possible.

Foreman thought Johnsons' use of the old world term "freedom" was a little mis-placed. "When an unlucky few have to pay that high a price, freedom isn't what they're buying."

Johnson had the look of a man holding on to hope but with his hands tied behind him. "You wanna' tell that to the men with the guns?" Johnson sighed. He looked deeply tired.

Foreman realized the young Sheriff was a lone, inexperienced kid trying to fill impossible shoes. Wanting to change things and having the power to actual change them were sometimes decades, and bloody wars, apart.

"Look - Mister Foreman is it? - I'm not suggesting you do but if you . . ._know_ of any Blue Eyes, I mean the kind with no holes in their heads, or any with babies, you better advise them to stay hidden tomorrow. And pretty much every day after that. Hayes finds out a Blue Eye or their partners are living anywhere within ten miles, he'll send a Reaper Party out to summarily Try, judge and sentence them. And, trust me, no Blue would ever win a case in New Dawn. Hayes has too much influence over everything that goes on here."

Foreman nodded. "Thanks. If I _hear_ of any, I'll tell them."

Johnson watched them walk away, then closed his door against the afternoon cold.

-

-

-

"What are you thinking?" Wilson asked Foreman as they hurried home.

"I'm thinking we picked the wrong place to set up house after all. And . . ."

"And what?"

"And I'm thinking that was an awfully big mound of dirt for just one body."

Wilson quickened his pace. Foreman was fast on his feet and even his own long legs were hard put to keep up. He soothed himself by remembering that Foreman had ten years less on his muscled frame. "You think there's more bodies in there?"

"Than just one Blue Eye and his baby? Somebody had to father that child."

"You think they might have killed the Browns too?"

"I'm thinking we're in a deep mound of trouble, and I don't mean dirt."

XXX

Part IV ASAP


	4. Chapter 4

RIDDLED WITH HEAVENPart IV

By GeeLady

(Sequel to _Gone With the World_)

Summary: Some will destroy Eden to reach Paradise.

Rating: M for Mature. Slash. Violence. Rape. Themes of prejudice and intolerance. Language. This is an _MPreg!!_ Pairing: House _plus_ Wilson/Foreman/Chase.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House and others to my hearts content. No fee's, no earnings,...just fun!-

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"Is this thing really worth my hate, or am I just a bigot?"Arron Alexovich

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SORRY ABOUT THE ON-OFF-ON POSTING. SPOTTED SOME GLARING ERROR(s)!!!

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"There were two other bodies in the grave." Foreman said to House. "Nothing but bones left of course, but both males. Probably the babys' sire-dads."

Around the kitchen table by candle light, the four men discussed their macabre find.

House asked. "And the psycho who put them there is coming here tomorrow."

"Probably. But the Sheriff said he was coming along. He's just a kid but I think he's okay. I trust him but I don't think we should tell him any more than we have to."

"Trust doesn't stop bullets." Chase said. "I think we should leave tonight. Just get in the car and get the hell out of here."

Foreman shook his head, nodding to House. "House is due in ten days. I'd like my children to be settled somewhere. And even though it's only been a short time, I think we've worked too hard here to just abandoned it without a fight. If it's possible I'd like to try and find a way to live with these people."

"With murderers?" Wilson asked. "If they find out House is a pregnant Blue Eye, give me one reason you think they won't want to eliminate him and us? We're "abominations", remember? We're all living in sin."

Foreman said quietly, "Then we'll fight for our home - at least by negotiation - for our right to live and have children. There's no reason to think the rest of the world is any more tolerant of Blue Eyes."

"There's no reason to think they're aren't either." Chase said. "We don't have any weapons. My bow is done but it's got to cure for a few weeks. I can't use it yet and even if I could, an arrow isn't faster than a bullet. You want to negotiate with a killer? A killer who, in a world exclusively male, hates homosexuals? He's nuts. You really think serving tea to this guy is going to make him reasonable?"

"I've had enough killing." Foreman reminded them. "But this family's a democracy." Foreman spread his hands, opening the floor to his mates. "We can vote on it, unless someone has an argument against that?" No one did.

"So who's for waiting until after the visit with Sheriff Johnson and Raithe?" Foreman asked, raising his own hand.

After a glance out side the window into the dark, Wilson did also. "I must be an idiot." But he was also tired. He didn't want to be on the run again no matter how much simpler it would be for them all to just leave.

Foreman said, "And who's for leaving tonight?"

Up until now he had been quiet. "You're all_ idiots_." House snapped. "This may be a democracy but I've got a baby in my belly, not you. I'm risking two lives so my vote counts twice. That makes it two and two and my intelligent _two_ cancels out the _stupid_ two. We leave tonight."

Foreman and Wilson looked at Chase to decide the winning side. House scowled.

"Look, if it makes you feel any better," Foreman said to House and Chase, "I'll happily throw my hat into leaving if we can't find a way to co-exist with the people of New Dawn. If staying here poses too great a threat, we'll leave."

After a moment Chase reluctantly brought his hand up. "Sorry, babe'." He said to House. "I guess I'm an idiot too."

XXX

House and the children they carefully concealed in the attic. The one tiny plastic window had been painted over with white-wash years ago so there was just enough light to see by but no one inside could been seen from the yard. Early that morning, Chase and Wilson stripped the home of everything that even remotely hinted at new-born or Blue-Eye. There was very little that needed hiding.

The upstairs bedrooms they made up to look like no two people slept in the same bed and that they were all confirmed clean living, abstainers.

The downstairs part of the house they arranged in some disarray to make it look like they spent the greater part of their hours outdoors doing man work.

Shortly after eleven AM a soft knock was heard at the front door. Foreman opened it up to find Sheriff Jess Johnson standing there. He was conspicuously alone. That it was mid-morning was fortunate - the babies would be napping. No cries would be heard anywhere in the house to give away the presence of their blue eyed mate or three offspring.

But neither Raithe nor Hayes had accompanied Johnson.

"Where's Raithe?" Foreman asked.

Johnson said with a note of puzzlement. "He should have been here already. He left early this morning. It's ten miles but we didn't travel together. I couldn't. I had a land dispute to settle." He looked dismayed. "It wasn't settled though."

Foreman stepped back, allowing the young Sheriff to step inside. "Come in. You want something? Water? We have some spruce tea left."

"Water's fine." Sheriff slipped off his thick grey woolen coat. It looked like it had been made for a large person and had a womans' cut. Everyone had to make do with what was at hand and on such a chilly morning, Foreman doubted Johnson cared whether it was made for a man, woman or monkey, so long as it was warm.

Foreman invited Johnson to follow him to the kitchen. "Make yourself comfortable." Foreman got him a glass of water from the plastic jug they always kept on the counter fresh pumped every morning from the hilled well out back of the house.

Foreman sat opposite him. Johnson had met Wilson but he was reluctant to introduce him to Chase just yet whom had agreed to wait in the barn and keep an look out.

Foreman wanted to know more about the hatred for Blue Eyes that was broiling in the area before risking the exposure of anyone else to it. "Do you have any idea _why_ Raithe didn't come this morning?"

Johnson rubbed his head nervously. In the soft kitchen lighting, he looked younger than ever. He may be the town Sheriff, but to Foreman it was clear he was little more than a kid. "No. He left before I did. Maybe he decided to go hunting instead?" Johnson suggested. "Winter's coming."

Foreman wasn't counting on it. "Does Raithe and this other guy, Hayes, usually visit the surrounding farms or hunt in this area? I'd just like to know what to expect."

"I expect Hayes'll make himself, Raithe or one of the other cronies a regular visitor here. Hayes is always sniffing around for sinners. Gives him a purpose in life I s'pose."

Foreman didn't like the sound of that. "Would he listen if we asked him not to visit? If we asked to be left alone to run our farm, do you think he would respect that?"

Johnson thought for a minute. He licked his lips. "I doubt it. I wish I could be more help, but I don't think Hayes will take kindly to knowing there are men here living together in one house. It would smack of sin to him."

Foreman felt the inevitable slide toward defeat in the face of not only overwhelming, armed numbers but colossal prejudice. "We found three adult skeletons in that grave, Sheriff. From what you told me, it's likely Hayes is itching to add more."

"Like I said. I wish I could be of some help."

Chase burst through the front door and was yelling before he reached the kitchen. "House's gone! And the babies." He was panting and white.

Foreman thought he heard him wrong. "What? Gone? _Where_ gone? Do you--"

Chase stood still as a statue while tossing out words in a jumble. "I mean, he's gone. The house - at the back of the house - I thought I heard something - I found a ladder - up against the side, up to the attic. I checked - the window was cut - figured House decided to take the car and go maybe - but there was no one there and the cars are still here so I checked the barn, the sheds, the chicken house - _nothing!_ House is gone. The _babies _are gone. That psycho's _taken_ them!"

Wilson dashed up the stairs just because he had to disprove Chase. Foreman followed him House wasn't really gone and the babies were just fine. Everyone was safe now.

Everyone was okay. They had left the facility behind and they were free. People you love don't get kidnaped when you're all living _free._

But the attic was empty. A bottle of baby formula was lying near the window, but there were no baby blankets, no babies crying. No House. Wilson suddenly couldn't breath in the stifling close room. His mate and lover, his beautiful, wonderful children were gone.

XXX

"These children are ready to be redeemed." Hayes made his speech before the few gathered dozens of his fenced community. "They are outside and separate from the evil that spawned them and are therefore capable of becoming as angels among us as you yourselves aspire to be."

Hayes, a tall imposing figure of a man with a shock of well kept brown hair and deep set black eyes, pointed his carefully manicured forefinger in the direction of where his sole adult prisoner was lying on the ground surrounded by his followers. House was bound and gagged. The human angels sneered in disgust.

"This vermin who birthed them, however, is beyond saving. An animal who slept with no less than other like animals, all deserving of death. They are curse of the Earth. God's punishment on wayward men who would exchange the natural use of their bodies to that of one against the original nature formed and blessed by Him."

House, gagged with a tight fitting twist of cotton was unable to speak a word in his defense. His legs were bound at the ankles and his shirt removed. Instinctively he kept himself hunched, protectively favoring his abdomen.

His crippled leg screamed at him for warmth. His feet were cut and bleeding from his forced march through the sharp and broken underbrush.

At Hayes wave of a hand, two of his heavier-set men carried House to a small metal shack, tossed him inside like aside of beef and pad-locked the door.

"The trial for the soul of this creature will begin in three days. Now is a time of testing. If he survives until then he shall be granted last rites at the behest of you, the saints, and sent to his wages cleansed of spirit - and so may God himself receive him and render judgement as to whether he be redeemed or no. If, by three days in the belly of the Earth, he is found dead, his spirit was as weak as his flesh and he shall be shot and sent to hell. Until that day, may you all go in peace."

XXX

Johnson, lingering uncomfortably in the hall a few steps away was clearly a little confused. "There's three of you - I mean four - of you here? And kids too?"

Chase didn't spare a look at the startled young man sitting at their kitchen table.

Wilson dashed up the stairs, found the ladder pull, yanked it down and scrambled up to the attic as fast as he could.

It was empty. The thick blankets where House and the children had been, and the half empty bottle of home-made formula, lay undisturbed. His heart and head screamed as he came back down the ladder where Foreman was waiting.

"Chase is right." Wilson felt like a hole had opened beneath his feet and was sucking his life force away heart-beat by heart-beat. "The murdering son-of-a-bitch's got House and the babies. Our kids!" He looked at Foreman with venom. "Our _kids! . . ." _

Foreman could hardly breath as Wilson finished his accusatory words. " . . .are being taken to the woods right now to be shot."

Foreman grabbed Wilsons' arms, to calm him down and to support him as he appeared on the verge of fainting. "We'll get them back." He said. He believed it absolutely. The contemplation of any other end was unthinkable. Was un-imaginable. If his children died, if House died, there was no question he would too. "We'll get them back, Wil'. We haven't heard any shots."

But Wilson was shaking. "Oh - I feel so much _better_. They took our kids! Foreman. _You_ wanted to be neighbors with these people. People who drag human beings - _babies _- into the forest and shoot them in the back of the head - the same murderers who just took our _babies._ Who took House!"

Foreman, his eyes stormy with grief and fury, answered Wilson's venom with his own. "I wanted to protect them!" Foreman shouted but he also knew it had been a risk trusting that Hayes could be reasoned with. "We'll get them back! If I have to kill every last one of them, we'll get them back." He promised Wilson. He promised Chase. He promised himself. They _had_ to get them back. He would have his family back one way or another. Any way by any method.

And Hayes had _not_ walked them to the forest. Not yet because no gun shots had reached his ears. He would never hear those shots either. His second promise to himself. _Never_. "I swear." Foreman said between clenched teeth.

Johnson whispered something in Chases' ear. Chase took one look at Wilson and grabbed his trembling arms. "Hey guys. Johnson wants to talk to us." Chase said quietly, his own grief snow-plowed under a growing hunger for retribution, leaving him feeling stone cold and angry. He helped Wilson down the stairs. The man was nearly prostrate with shock.

"What?" Foreman bluntly asked the young Sheriff as they entered the kitchen.

Johnson stood there, one hand nervously rubbing his empty-chambered and useless holstered gun. "I, . . .hey - look I got no problem with any of you. I-I think you're good people, Blue Eyes and babies -" He paused. "Jesus. Raithe. He must have arrived early and waited for me to show up." He cast guilty eyes around the three older men who had just lost their family. "Maybe Hayes suspected a Blue Eye, . . I c-can't think of any other reason they would sneak in like that."

His bright, brown eyes got as big as saucers, "He waited until I arrived. I was your distraction. I kept you occupied so they could look around - I - I'm s-sorry . . .had no idea . . Look, whatever I can do - I mean I'd like to help." He licked his lips. "I, . . .I know where Hayes' weapons stash is. At least I think I do. And his ammunition too."

Chase was white and shaking, Wilson was nearly catatonic. Foreman found himself in the position of being the cool headed one once more. "This Hayes? He have some kind of compound? Some well guarded place in the hills?" Foreman was already envisioning cutting Hayes, Raithe and anyone else who got in his way with a few dozen well aimed bullets.

Johnson nodded, running thin fingers through his hair. "Uh, yeah. But he's got men patrolling the fences all the time. It's a big ranch in the hills. Huge. About twenty or thirty shacks along with the big house. Maybe forty men, mostly middle aged, some younger n' me."

"How do we get our family back?" Wilson asked, finding his voice again after discovering his mate and children gone had temporarily shut down his speech center and almost pinched off his throat.

Johnson thought for a moment. It was obvious this was unlike anything he had ever faced as a Sheriff and it was also clear that he wasn't going to be much use in the crises. "U-um, . . .Hayes is well armed. I don't even have bullets for my twenty-two. Nobody does, we've been mostly trapping to eat but-"

Chase was bursting with the need to throttle the younger man if he didn't start thinking more quickly. "-_Where_ are the guns?"

"I think he keeps them in an underground bunker between two barns. Right near his own house. But his whole compound is fenced - wire mesh - you know? And he has guards walking a line night and day to keep everybody out."

"How do you know?"

"Hayes's never had any reason to keep it secret. No one in New Dawn is a threat to him. He brags about his arsenal, even to me. I guess he figures if he keeps everyone scared of him, no one will challenge his authority." Johnson cleared his throat self-consciously. "'S' worked so far."

Wilson didn't like the idea of trying to gain access to guns that existed only on the word of a religious survival-ist gun-happy kidnapper espousing visions of god-hood. "Is there _any_ way we can get our family back?"

Foreman said to them all, "Maybe we can trade? But we're not willing to give what we have up for anything other than total cooperation. He brings back House and the kids unharmed and leaves us alone. And then we'll leave him alone."

Johnson said doubtfully, "I don't think negotiating with Hayes will do you any good. The things he wants are - you can't hold them in your hands. He's looking for paradise."

"He's looking to create it - that's not the same thing." Foreman said.

"I know but . . ." Johnson had no suggestions.

Chase was curious. "Why have you stayed here, feeling the way you so about Hayes? Wilson said you wanted to go East. Why haven't you?"

"No way to get there, walking all that way. I'd have to do it alone." Johnson shifted his feet, restless under their questions. Johnson un-holstered his gun, looking at the useless hunk of steel. "I wish I had bullets. I don't know how much use I can be to you, but I'll help if I can. If you can use me."

Foreman nodded. "We can."

But Johnson licked his lips. "Hayes probably isn't going to give them back, you know. He's probably going to kill 'em." He looked away from the dark mans' intense stare. "Probably already has."

Wilson refused to believe it. He didn't think he could live if that were true. "Would Hayes take them directly to his compound?"

"Maybe, if he was planning on a mock trial. Or to the forest. But if he did, he wouldn't go to the same grave site, he'd probably pick a new spot if he was planning on killing them right off. Something about treading over evil ground."

Wilson was white and shaking. "Raithe did."

"Raithe doesn't really believe in all that Paradise crap. He just likes the guns. And power." Johnson explained.

"Why would Hayes bother with any kind of trial?" Chase asked.

"To keep his face clean before his followers." Johnson answered. "Outright murder without their full support might sully his reputation as a righteous and forgiving man in their eyes. It'd weaken his hold on them."

"Religion never changes." Foreman said.

"People never change." Wilson corrected. Something House had often espoused. "Religion's just an excuse."

"Well, he or his god isn't going to keep us out." Chase said. He knew House would start to show any day and within another two or three short days, his pregnancy would become too obvious to miss.

Foreman asked the Sheriff. "Can you draw us a map of the compound? Main house, barns, fences, gun stash - all that?"

"Sure. I been there a few times."

Foreman said, "Chase, can you scare up some paper and a pen?"

"We're getting our family back." Foreman said to his mates.

Wilson sat, mute with fear that his longest and dearest friend and mate, the man who had given birth to their three precious children and was pregnant with their fourth, might already be dead.

XXX

House had spent the night shivering in the just above freezing temperatures of the metal shed. He was shirtless and his belt they had used to bind his ankles together so his pants had shifted and were bagging almost to his knees. On his hands they used a set of old fashioned metal cuffs that bit into his flesh. It was dark and damp in the shed and he spent a sleepless night lying on his left side on the hard dirt. At least they hadn't yet discovered his bad leg and amused themselves with a bit of cattle prod sport.

He had no idea where they had taken the babies but had spent fruitless hours trying to scream through his mouth gag, crying and begging his kidnappers not to hurt them, until his eyes were out of tears and his body drained of energy to shed any more.

Lying very still, he felt he was floating on the edge of a kind of almost death, a thin border between the wish to live and the resignation of dying. With his babies taken from him, he felt he may as well be.

House could feel the brood of warm blood at his lower abdomen, though, and it was speaking life to him. Prodding and poking at his mind, his new child was already there and growing, talking to him without speaking, taking from him warmth and oxygen and nutrients. He would, all too soon, leave his body but only so far as to lie in his arms like an extension of him. Still a part - the more important portion.

That tiny person inside his belly was part him and part the sire-dad - Wilson or Chase or Foreman - he didn't yet know which. Half the fun was guessing and the other half was finding out. And his son would look up at him like he had always been there and always would. He would be someone, if not _meant to be_ because he didn't believe in such things, then someone _with_ meaning for him. Since having children with his three lovers House, for only the third time in his life, felt loved. Felt whole.

That child tucked inside his warm sac was the only part of him that wasn't numb with cold. House also knew his pregnancy would soon be noticeable. He also knew what happened to pregnant Blue Eyes in the delightful countryside in which they had settled.

Just before the first crack of dawn filtered through the wall joins of the flimsy shed in which he was a prisoner, House finally fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming about graveyards and men with rifles shooting at anything, animal or human, painted blue. Eyes, skin, fur, faces, flying legs and fleeing tails . . .

His nightmares ran red.

XXX

Part V ASAP


	5. Chapter 5

**RIDDLED WITH HEAVEN**

Part V

By GeeLady

(Sequel to _Gone With the World_)

Summary: Some will destroy Eden to reach Paradise.

Rating: M for Mature. **Slash**. Violence. **Rape**. Themes of **prejudice** and **intolerance.** Language. This is an _**MPreg!!**_

Pairing:House _plus_ Wilson/Foreman/Chase.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House and others to my hearts content. No fee's, no earnings,...just fun!

**-**

**-**

People walk upright and with open eyes into misfortune.

_Elias Canetti_

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Two mornings later, they marched him out in front of a smaller group of disapproving stares and whispers. People pointed and spoke righteous condemnations sprinkled with candies of hope for Houses' redemption.

This was the elite of Hayes' devoted flock. Each had his or her reasons for following Hayes. Some because he offered a sense of order in a world that had turned their lives into chaos, others because he offered hope for something shiny and new. Something _old_, but polished with a new spit-shine on its impenetrable surface.

Many of those who slept on in their beds while the drum-head trial was being decided, those who harbored doubts were not of the elite but stayed because Hayes had followers more devoted than they and daily proved it by brandishing their rifles and guns while turning suspicious eyes their way. Some only dared hope that their hope in him and his god was not in vain. Other slunk in fear at Hayes and Raithe, pulling their veils a little further down over their eyes to hide their sight from some frightening vision.

And so the bleating sheep of the Alpha Wolf stared at his prisoner and prey, the pseudo-male with female-ish parts residing where Hayes said they'd no right to be, conceiving life that, on the one hand, might yet be saved and, on the other, had no business being born.

Only those redeemed by the word of Hayes and his deity were granted a get-out-of-jail card into the future spun by Hayes and his god. Other disbelievers were cut down without a moments notice.

A small few were allowed a carefully orchestrated trial.

Houses' ankle restraint, his own leather belt, was loosened a little, as one of his feet had turned white from lack of circulation and his big toe blue. But the belt was not completely removed and his hands remained tied behind his back. Those, he couldn't feel anymore. Instead two phantom lumps at the ends of his arms flopped around like raw cuts of beef.

House was cold and hungry and terribly thirsty.

"The creature of degradations is still alive." Hayes' voice suddenly rang out like the organ pipes of a preacher of old - a melodious baritone of perfect enunciation in a Moses-like volume so it would echo awesomely over the hills. But the words said were nothing like what would be offered from a humble savior of a people, more like the hypocritical leaders of a nation of the un-washed and un-wanted. Pharisee like sneering. A man who said one thing and did another. Who claimed un-earned, due righteousness on the one hand and enacted baseless cruelties on the other, his right hand feigning ignorance of what his left hand was doing.

Hayes condemned the unholy trussed up beast at center court. "The spawn of the deplorable creature have also survived their trial thus far."

House stopped breathing and at the same time his heart began to thunder like wild hooves. Terror. Pure terror washed over and through him like he was made of sand. Trials? Trials on his children? His tiny, helpless, innocent babies who understood no language and read no books and were therefor deaf to the charges against them and pure to their assumption.

"There is some question among you," Hayes presented, "that feel these offspring may not be truly worthy."

No one knew if anyone had privately spoken any such word to Hayes. Certainly no one would have done so openly but neither did anyone question that someone may have. And not a soul on the consecrated compound soil had courage enough to suggest otherwise. Working rifles were a far better rod of discipline than a hand-staff and made far better, and more accurate, measures of men than a yard-stick.

"The offspring of this abomination shall undergo the same cleansing as their imperfect, fleshly creator." Hayes held high a gentle, reassuring palm to any who might doubt the necessity of such a trial upon such tiny souls. "Please be comforted that the trials of ones so small would be measured as small. A day of human - _child-_sized deprivation, to determine whether their hearts and souls are larger than human; whether they are as angels waiting to spread their wings from the dawning of creation."

House, in between screaming, muffled pleas behind his mouth gag and hacking out sobbing supplications between choking lung fulls of air, as even his body evoked its world-sized disbelief that his children might be hurt. The thought of their suffering at that, or any, moment, was a pain unlike any he had ever experienced. By comparison, fifteen years of his leg was a shadow at midday.

Hayes lifted a commanding palm turned upward to the sky, invoking the mercy of the god he worshiped, whoever that was, and asking for his blessing upon the babies he was about to send into agony only they would feel yet understand nothing about.

Now the pain ten-folded and bent House over, doubled him up like a collapsed paper tube, soaked through with water, unraveling him. Unfurling the greatest sense of love he had ever experienced. After the birth of each of his children he had secretly wept with the joy of it, hiding his weakness for them away from the eyes of his mates who extolled their own happiness to him and each other with ease. He had given his children life and they had returned it a hundred times simply by living and being his. So they were also his greatest weakness and the pain of their dying was his own. Worse than that. A life without them would be worse.

House sobbed into the dirt, the pain unbearable yet somehow he endured it. He had no choice. Hayes was merciless.

At that second, with the words Hayes had set upon his children, House did not care if they starved him, beat him or shot him between the eyes, so long as his children lived.

House was desperate to act.

He was held fast.

Watching his own death creep up over days in full view would be the easier task. House didn't consider appealing to Hayes humanity since it was clear the man possessed none. Hayes was no ordinary human. He was absent of real feeling and genuine remorse. Swept of conscience. Bereft of soul. As a physician, House could easily see the psycho pathology in the lunatic who smiled while condemning three little babies to suffering and death. Hayes' narcissism and megalomania rung clear as church bells. How could anyone have missed it?

"They shall suffer no more than any child of God might suffer on the road from Egypt to the land of Canaan. They shall be without water and food for a single day. Without warmth for a single night. Without food for a single sunrise and set. Three days. The sign of Jonah, the sign of the Lord. Three days in the proverbial earth. From there, after, they shall rise and be redeemed."

House thrashed on the ground, screaming murderous words at Hayes through running sobs and receiving not a weary blink from Hayes himself for the disintegration of his soul.

With a cardinal wave of Hayes' hand House was returned to his metal bedroom and dirt mattress.

He thrashed until the restraints bit into his already raw and sticky flesh, until the blood ran into the dirt and made designs in the soil, patterns of dots here and there, like Earth-bound constellations. No shining fire or heavenly light, not beautiful, but the dark, cooling embers of his own humanity and motionless inability to save his children.

House sobbed into the dirt, his tears adding moisture to his world, the only wetness he had felt or tasted for two days, and realized that for all his force of will and desire, his pre-set determination to protect his children at any cost, even at the cost of his life, he possessed nothing to trade and in a prison his life as a sacrifice was useless. His offering was trapped behind a padlocked door and his life or his death would make not one breath of difference while his children were so far from him. Neglected, cold, hungry, Hayes the sociopath would leave them to die in the kilometer wide prison created from his own mind.

House felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. And then another. One more and he knew his "quickening", and first swelling, had arrived. He felt one weak, oh so frail and tiny kick from the new child within him. His unborn child who would soon make his presence known to those who would not welcome him and which child he could not protect either, even while still nested in his flesh.

At the thought of his children being tortured, House could sense a kind of insanity overtaking him. Not like when he was living in the Rough, alone and starved and afraid and so horribly tired of life that each day was a endurance of it, but a heady, energizing lust to kill Hayes and everyone who had listened to him without a twitch of conscience.

At the thought that he would never see his children again, or his mates, House wanted to die. The two diverging minds inside him, the insane one who wanted swift, bloody revenge, and the one who could no longer imagine life in any world without his children, who rejected retribution and craved death, battled long into the flesh biting night.

And inside him, his baby kicked, unfamiliar with either man and oblivious to the war. A child determined to live in spite of all.

XXX

"Okay." Foreman, Chase and Johnson stared down at the quickly sketched outlay of the compound. Johnson wasn't much of an artist. "So we know where the big house, the smaller houses and shacks and the barns. And we know the fence is unbroken, topped with barbed wire and guarded by men with rifles." Foreman summed it up. "So - how do we get inside?"

Johnson studied his own poorly drawn sketch. "Maybe we can sneak in under the fence at night? Choose a section where the brush is thicker. I don't know how many gauds he has, but they can't patrol every foot of fence all the time? There's only thirty or so people living over there."

Chase had been silent, one eye and ear on the discussion and one and one of Wilson. Wilson sat there, listening and looking and saying nothing. He hadn't made a peep since discovering for real that House and the babies were gone. Chase knew as much as he loved House and adored his children, Wilson still had something very special with House. Probably always had. Only in the last few years had it been granted circumstance for growth. Wilson seemed like half a man without his closest mate. And, raped of his children, he was acting and speaking like a robot low on batteries.

Chase didn't think a night assault on a heavily armed barracks-like military minded compound without light or, aside from his single long bow, effective weapons had any hope of success - if they even knew where to look for House and the children. "We need a diversion." He said.

Foreman and Johnson listened, grateful for an idea. Wilson stared into space.

"We can't go in there stumbling around in the dark with no idea where House or the kids might be. We can't take torches because they'd been seen. We have no idea that once we're in or once we're discovered that Hayes or that Raithe guy wouldn't just shoot us and them on the spot." He didn't add, _if they're still alive at all_.

Chase pointed his finger at the chained main gate. "We need a huge diversion. Something they can't possibly ignore. One of us'll have to create a surprise that'll require all of their hands so the rest of us can slip in and rescue our family."

"Best idea I've heard yet." Foreman said. The idea, however TV make-believe-movie-of-the-week sounding, might work. House would comment that make believe had not begun with his taste for movies but his original educational choice of a seminary college.

"What kind of diversion?" Wilson asked. Chase was glad to see his mind engaged enough to formulate the crucial query. "What could we do to draw their attention away from Hayes and the gauds?"

Chase said. "We have two cars." He ignored Johnsons' quick look of surprise. "Both with about a quarter tank of gas left. Enough to dive them sixty miles each. Plenty of gas for what we want to do."

"What do we wanna' do?" Johnson asked.

"We rig some kind of bomb or . . .we figure out how to cause an explosion in one of the cars." He said, then quickly assured them, "I don't know how yet. There must be some way. One of us drives the first car through the gate and into the big house as hard as he can, sets the house on fire. Maybe we'll luck out and kill Hayes while we're at it. While Hayes sheep are battling the flames, the other three in the second car drive onto the compound and make a bloody fast search for House and the kids. Once they find them, we pick up the first man had get the hell out of there."

Foreman had a horrible thought. "What if House or the kids are being held prisoners in the big house?"

The three looked to Johnson. "I doubt Hayes would do that, at least not with House. Hayes thinks he's a sinner and no way would he have someone like that in his own home." Johnson fidgeted, adding uncomfortably. "I dunno' 'bout your kids though."

Wilson raised round, bloodshot eyes to all three men. "No damn way are we going to risk that. We are not going to risk our kids."

Foreman looked at him sadly. He felt the same way. They were his kids, too. And Chases'. "Wil',"

Wilson hated it when Foreman called him Wil because he only did it when he was about to deliver bad news or convince him of something he knew might go badly.

"Wil', the kids are already at risk. they might already be-" But he stopped himself. He couldn't say it. Not about Reed or Jordan or Lee. Not about their little babies boys. "We have to try. Unless you can think of something better? 'Cause if you can, now's the time."

Wilson didn't say anything more.

Johnson looked around the kitchen at each man. "Which one of you knows how to build a bomb?"

XXX

A nook and cranny search of the house, barn and sheds turned up some interesting items. Ironically the most unexpected were a box of rifle shells.

Wilson looked at them dubiously. "terrific. Now all we need to do is manufacture several fifty year old hunting rifles in perfect working order."

Foreman said. "These'll do just fine."

Chase took a closer look, picking up on what Foreman was laying down. "I think they're shells for a Thirty-Aught-Six. An old rifle mostly used for hunting. My dads' brother owned one. Used it to take out the larger Dingo's when they preyed on the spring lambs. Lots of gun powder in those."

-

-

-

Two hours later, Chase leaned over Foremans' shoulder. "Are you sure you know what-?"

"-No." He snapped. "I'm not sure. I know how to hot wire a car and pick a lock. That's hell and back from building a working explosive."

"All we need to do is have some way of causing the fuel to vaporize and ignite it at the right time, that's all." Chase said and when he did he recognized that with their limited resources and no handy cigarette lighters, it wasn't going to be as easy as he had just made it sound.

"Yeah, all we need. That and hopefully getting the hell out of a mangled, burning wreck before dying - yeah - I _get_ it." Foreman said, his voice clipped and angry. "I just don't know if we can _do_ it." He went back to the task at hand.

Wilson piped in. "But we only have to get a little of the gas into a spray, right? The rest'll ignite, burst into flames and blow out the gas tank and a lot of the car with it. When the pressure inside the tank builds up?" He looked from Foreman to chase for verification. "That's how it goes right?"

Foreman nodded. "Unless the laws of physics changed, yeah. I think that's how it supposed to go."

"If we do everything else right." Chase said. He saw Wilsons' grey, frightened face. Frightened for their childrens' lives. For House. He gave Wilson a quick kiss on the mouth. "We're going to get them back, you know."

Wilson just nodded, mute to any affirmations or negations. He was getting by, like they all were, minute by minute. Chase knew he and Foreman were far better at compartmentalizing than Wilson, who clutched things to the core of his being and wore his feelings thick and true on his ever shifting emotional surface.

Compartmentalizing when it was your kids lives' at stake was done, not to minimize the impact, but so functioning effectively enough to safely bring them home became possible. Chase understood clearly that if they _all _freaked out, their children would for sure die.

XXX

The one positive thing about being so cold that your feet were numb was that you didn't really feel much pain from them. His bum leg still felt it though. The crippled thigh reminded him with every bare-foot impact on the buckling door of the shed - his death chamber. House knew he would be dead before Hayes ever got around to any mock trial. Hayes knew it too, which was of course the point of the deprivational torture to begin with. Hayes had no intention of letting him live and if Hayes didn't want him to live, the freak would condemn his children as well.

Hayes was enacting a very old method of extracting either a confession or slipping in an honest looking excuse for an execution. The trick was right out of the twice blessed hastily scribed scrolls of the Inquisition. Torture someone like the Dark- Agers' until their victim either confessed devotion to the new, Crown authorized Faith or admit involvement with the old, unrecognized and illegal one. Either way, you got tortured. Either way, they would soon put you to death.

Better yet was a sleight of Faith drawn from the historical annuls of the Witch hunt days of Salem. Tie twenty pounds of rock to the back of a suspected practitioner of the dark arts, truss her up so she can't move and toss her into a deep pond, invoking the name of the Lord to save her. If she drowns she was a witch and the Lord had rendered judgement. If she floated, the Lord himself had saved her as an innocent.

Though rocks were not too heavy for the hand of God, no one had ever floated.

House drew his belted legs back and brought them against the buckling door of the old shed. The door was caving outward but the padlock held fast. The hinges, though, had looked rusty and might be weak enough so House kept it up, on and off, for almost a half hour, trying to will those old fasteners to throw in.

Finally he had to rest his leg which was screaming a blue streak at him in the way of lightening bolts traveling up and down his raw nerves, setting them on fire. Pain that radiated down and up his body. House figured it had to be one or two in the morning. It was a guess. If anyone heard him pounding and came to check, or came to shoot, it didn't matter, if he didn't pound he and his children would still die. If he pounded and they didn't come, he and his children might live, if he could get to them in time.

After only a few minutes rest, House returned to his work of trying to knock the tin door off its hinges. He was so intent on his efforts to mentally ignore the pain in his leg, for a few seconds he didn't notice that his shed sweat and blood were having some success. The bottom hinge was giving way. House doubled his efforts and soon the top hinge popped with the sound, oddly enough, of the crack of a small caliber hand-gun.

House mentally filed the sound under _Things I now know the sound of even though I haven't heard them all in living stereo_. Like the loud blasting sound the attempted murderers' gun had made all those years ago when the man entered his offices and shot him twice at point blank range. That had been a far deeper and lasting echo, with lasting results. Those scars still adorned his body. Un-solicited tatoos marking a passage of life into near death.

This crack was softer, muffled and not loud enough to be heard twenty feet beyond the confines of the shed. A separation of door and hinge, not body and life.

There was a bright half moon and by its light House could see his feet in the darkness, and the belt that held them together. The bottom edge of the now askew and hanging tin door was as sharp as a bread knife. House positioned his feet on either side of it so the belt touched the thin metal bottom and began rubbing the edge of the belt leather up against it, satisfied to see and small but noticeable cut in its surface from just a couple of passes.

House kept it up for almost another half hour. Finally, the belt broke and his feet at least were free creatures again.

House set to work on the ropes binding his hands together behind his back, a far more difficult task since he could only feel, not see, what he was doing. But the reassuring soft scrap of metal on hide was steady but slower work. The ropes were thick and resistant to wear, and tiny imperfections in the edge of the metal door would hook and bind on the irregular pieces of twisted nylon, slowing the work further. But after many minutes of determined pressure and movement, the rope broke, loosened and fell away.

House found himself in a world of pain as the circulation once again fully reached the tips of his stiffened fingers. He thrust them under his armpits to give them some long missed warmth. Once they would work sufficiently without too much pain he rubbed some feeling back into his frosted, naked toes and got to unsteady feet. He searched around a few yards of shrubs and old broken trees until he found a halfway suitable stick for a cane. It wasn't very sturdy but it would have to do.

It was darker now as the moon had tucked its face behind willow-the-wisp night-time clouds, the kind that would dissipate come daylight. House had no idea where his children were. He had no flashlight and no clothing but pants that would no longer stay up without him holding them in place which he did with his left hand twisted in the material. He was shoe-less and wore only a thin, dirty tee-shirt.

He was back in the Rough and almost everyone was out for his blood. Incredible how little things changed, House thought as he stumbled over the uneven ground, even when hundreds of miles are between those things and yourself.

House squinted in the dark. In the weak light of the veiled moon, he could see the outline of the large animal barn, the tiny roofs of the untidy rows of the residents' shacks, and the big house at the far end of the expansive yard.

House licked his lips, he sweated but his mouth was dry. He was so hungry it had become a autonomous force inside him and a haunting voice in his brain that insisted on immediate sustenance. He had lost at least five pounds of body fat but had put on over a pound of baby. Whatever reserves his body had left, it was carrying to the growing child inside his womb sac.

His first urgent physical worry was that he was dangerously dehydrated. House considered trying to get a few swallows of the precious fluid from the water pump but it was so close to the house. If he worked the handle and someone heard. . .?

House spotted a dirty, dented trough of standing water contaminated by many animals' mouths. But abominations can't be choosers and he drank from it deeply, ignoring the flakes of rotted leaves and the grains of un-masticated feed that had fallen from some pigs mouth. The water tasted like a cow yard but it filled him, returning a modicum of strength.

He would have to worry about food later. He had no choice. But one decision out of the way left him searching for another and a destination as well. It was dark, he was almost naked and exposed to the cold. He had no warmth, no food, no light.

And no idea where his children had been taken. Looking for them in the dark, no matter how desperately his aching heart urged him to just abandon any reason or plan and rush off into the dark looking everywhere for them, House made himself stand still and think. He had to have light, that at the very least, if his children were out in the bush (and he had no reason to think Hayes hadn't done exactly as he had stated and leave them to either live or die on their helpless own), if he wished to entertain any hope of finding them.

House searched with eyes now more accustomed to the night and they saw, after scanning the rows of sheep shacks, a faint glow. House, very softly on swollen, cut feet and trembling stick, walked through the dark closer to the source of light. It could just be a reflection off a farm implement or even a June bug. If it were still June. He wished it was because at least in the warmth of June his children would stand a better chance of living through the night.

No, it was a small lantern that someone had turned down very low but left burning. A night-light. Houses' nose told him why. A shared out-house sat a few hundred yards into the bush, well away from the dwellings, but if he turned his head in just the right direction and sniffed . . .Someone had wanted a ready night-light to make their way.

House took hold of the wire handle and lifted the lantern without a sound. He could get into the bush from here easily. Follow a path until he was far enough away to turn the wick and flame higher to see by. Following the path to the out-house and then into the woods, for the path did not end but continued on, made the most sense. Even when delivering upon a edict from Hayes, he doubted anyone would have taken the energy to force their way into the thick brush by hacking out a new foot path. Anyone with some common intelligence would take the easiest, well marked road that held the fewest disturbances.

After a few hundred yards beyond the wooden latrine, House paused to listen. He would never be able to search the several square miles of forest that surrounded the compound, but if he listened carefully, and if the wind continued to cooperate and just lightly blow to carry sound to him without drowning it out. . . .but House heard nothing.

He felt something though.

A small something that quickly became a larger something. A growing pain in his abdomen. House inhaled a few deep breaths, trying to shake it off but it wasn't having any. No, his heart joined in the fun and pounded and his stomach quivered with nausea while his abdominals began a slow and steady "caterpillar" that increased in speed and severity with every elapsed minute.

But it was _way_ too soon. Eight days too soon.

Another pain doubled him over and House nearly dropped the lantern. This pain took him to his knees and he wrapped one palm protectively over his lower abdomen as though to discipline his offspring into staying quiet a little longer. House remained bent over on the ground, taking in great gulps of air, trying to ride out the agony.

The pain this time was the worst he had ever felt. Much worse than when he had delivered his first three children. Not even the twins had sent him whining through clenched teeth and bitten lip, as he tried with every fibre in his body not to cry out. He felt like his baby was trying to squeeze its way between its fathers' legs all by itself.

House, in agony on the joint chilling forest bed, sensed his sluggish, starved thoughts finally coming togther in a fashion orderly enough that he understood why the pain was that bad.

It was because that was exactly what was happening. He was going into pre-mature labor in the middle of a forest in the cold in the dead of night in a sleep deprived, weakened and physically compromised condition. Of all the decisions his child had to make, it would be a series of bad decisions made out here in the no-where of a cold, pre-dawn coniferous jungle.

House stumbled to legs weakened with hunger and now pain. He forced his feet to move one in front of the other, the cane supporting the throbbing right leg, his hand supporting his cramping belly. He had to get farther away from the compounds' main yards if he wanted to give birth to his child without anyone the wiser. He had no idea what he was going to do if he encountered one of Hayes protective chicken wire fences but he would have to worry about that later.

House reeled with the task ahead: run - a hard order at any time during his infarcted forties - barefoot through the forest, find his suffering children in the cold, dark night (he refused to entertain any other possibilities at this juncture), get them to safety and some time, some where amidst all of that, stop and have a baby. A baby already causing him troubles and it wasn't even born yet. House was surprised he could smile at the thought of it, especially when he should be screaming and crying and insane with revenge.

An eventful few days for sure. He'd make a scrap-book.

The kid _had_ to be Wilsons'.

XXX

Part VI ASAP


	6. Chapter 6

**RIDDLED WITH HEAVEN**

Part VI

By GeeLadyff

(Sequel to _Gone With the World_)

Summary: Some will destroy Eden to reach Paradise.

Rating: M for Mature. **Slash**. Violence. **Rape**. Themes of **prejudice** and **intolerance.** Language. This is an _**MPreg!!**_

Pairing:House _plus_ Wilson/Foreman/Chase.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House and others to my hearts content. No fee's, no earnings,...just fun!

**-**

**-**

_**Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.**_

**Ralph Waldo Emerson**

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House heard the cry of a small bird, faintly on the wind, above and beyond his own labored breathing and the slow _shush-shush_ of his feet picking their way over the dirt path interlaced with tree roots that had wiggled to the surface like hard-backed snakes.

But he had to stop. He couldn't follow the sound of the bird, the first living thing he had heard since breaking free from the tin-can jail cell. He had to stop. His labor pains, the rhythmic undulations, were intensifying and he knew the beginning of the delivery was imminent, when the muscles lining the front of his torso would bear down ever stronger, contracting and releasing like the grinding steady billows of an Accordion.

House stumbled and lay where he fell. His feet were slick with his own blood. Another step was unthinkable. He lay on the path, the November chilled soil cooling the sweat on his cheek. It felt so good to rest. He could just lie there until he passed out. That would end the pain, the insanity of his missing, possibly dying, children, the idea that any more effort was a fight worth making. Struggle to live one day and the next until death becomes an Inevitable, was the biggest laugh of all.

House cursed his body that refused to go to blissful sleep. _I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A bird will fall frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself. _Old memories and dusty words. Why they would now be blown clean by the forest cold and wind, winding through his jumbled thoughts, he had no inkling.

Things he had never thought of since high school came back, like walking home from school in the pouring rain at age seven and coming down with a case of pneumonia that sent his mother into spells of white-faced frantic phone calls to the doctor.

Or his father flying off to war and ruffling his hair. _Be the man now, while I'm gone, _when he was nine. Things he had never cared for at seven or nine. Or ever after.

House lifted his face from the dirt. He didn't see where the lantern had got to. It had flown from his hand on impact and its feeble glow was extinguished.

But dawn peeked at him from between the tall trees. Dawn at home would already be there, waking the chickens and the goats, stirring everything to life and noises of hunger.

But in the thick forest dawn always missed the first bus. Delayed by the depths to which the forest floor plunged from the tree tops, light was beaten back and the dark purple of pre-dawn stayed bent over all the lesser growth and anonymous creatures with a lingering, artificial night.

House sat up on his behind and kicked off his pants as best he could, leaving them in a heap at his side. His wore no underwear. He had soiled them after the first night spent in the shed (a hard thump on a noggin can do that). As a doctor House knew that if a patient is rendered unconscious, however briefly, his brain will think it is dying and it's autonomic answer is to release its control of bowel and bladder, discharging all contents into the hapless patients' favorite suit.

Houses' underwear had taken the brunt of his personal sludge. A scene never filmed on Grey's Anatomy.

House heard it again, the tiny cry, not of a bird but something more like a lamb. Faint and fading. House, ignoring his own pain and his unborn childs' insistence he stay still and do his fatherly duty, pulled himself to his feet, visually searched for and located his walking stick, and listened again. His tired mind tapped him on the shoulder: _there were no spring lambs in November. _

The light, finally rising in the forest, granted him a monochromatic haze of illumination where beneath, House knew, the vibrant greens, oranges and browns were there, waiting in line. But the cones on his human retina programmed for seeing colors couldn't yet detect them. He heard the sound once more and this time, with a turn of his head, his human stereophonic hearing ability pin-pointed the location.

House hurried as fast as he could hitch along, following the sound which was coming from a few yards, only a few yards, up the path and just off to the right.

He closed in on the source and saw a secondary path winding off into thicker trees. House, convinced it wasn't a bird or animal, listened for the mewing that had gone quiet.

Two small forms beneath a blanket appeared between some late-winter June berry bushes picked clean of fruit by the beaks of many birds and House fell to the ground beside his babies, instantly recognizeing them as Jordan and Reed. They were cold and weak but someone had scraped together enough compassion to wrap them up side by side in a thick wool blanket and place them on several layers of cardboard. House beat down his pain and his driving instinct to just hold them and cry relief. Instead he drew up on decades of training as a doctor and made a clinical examination in the blooming light. They looked dehydrated but not as bad as he would have expected after a night spent alone in the forest without food or liquid.

House tried not to think about Lee, his newest and smallest son, who was nowhere in sight.

On seeing their fathers' face, the babies began to cry anew for attention and a meal. He had neither to give them. Not even a sip of water. And his undulations continued unabated, making him cry out. House took his pants which he'd had the sense to carry with him and wrapped them around his babies heads to add to their warmth, leaving only a gap for them to freely breath.

House carried his children and lay them close to his side while he positioned himself on the path with his back up against the rough trunk of a spruce, spreading his legs. With his left hand, he palmed his genitals out of the way and with his right fingers probed the general spot where the birth canal had emerged during his previous labors. There was indeed a warm swelling there and he imagined, since he couldn't actually see it, that it was red flushed with blood.

But nothing was happening. He could feel the increasing pressure against his perineum of the birth canal pre-maturely descended but it was not pushing through. It made no further movement and House knew that was a very bad discovery.

House leaned his sweating and shivering back against the strength of the hundred year old tree, trying to think. He was going to have this baby right here and right soon. He had no way to stop it and no way to help it along.

Houses' eye caught sight of another small bundle lying on the opposite side of the trail where his two sons had waited and wailed for him. The other bundle just peeked out between some shrubbery, a small white roll of blanket that didn't move or make a sound.

House crawled on the sharp twigs and imbedded stones in the rough path. He reached the mystery thing and lifted it with his right hand while trying to raise himself upright on his knees, thereby freeing his left hand to unwrap the mummied cotton.

Inside was Lee and House knew with experience and a physicians' eye that his son was dead. In the second or two he had allowed himself to look, he noted the parlor of Lees' skin, the white almost translucent nature of it on his front side, and the pooling of his blood on the backside of his body, marking him with the unmistakable tatooing of blood settled by gravity. The clouded appearance of his irises and the sand-bag slackness of his tiny limbs told House all he needed to know to make the call and that it was unequivocal: Lee had died and had been dead for some time.

House cradled his dead son to his chest and dropped over onto his side, suddenly stripped of all strength. His will was whisked away by a demon called Hayes to be dispersed to the deaf-mute trees. Any possibility of getting it back was as dead as the innocent flesh in his arms. He cried in absolute silence over Lee, mouth agape, tears running but no sound at all. A fiercely silent scream that never-the-less filled the world.

Over his son, House felt himself fall to a pile of parts like a toppled castle of wooden blocks. No hands were nearby to put him back together. While his body writhed and pummeled him in its anxiety to birth him another child, House mourned his already present dead one. His body shook with the unreality of it and the disbelief and he gave free rein to the agony that had settled down on his broken parts, covering him.

House let his grief go full blown, to decide on its own the next minute of his life and what would happen in it. And the next and the next and the one after that, feeling his heart all but implode from the soul slaying mix of a fathers' personal denial and the impartial, medical fact that his child was dead. House all at once accepted and argued against the knowledge that creatures euphemistically calling themselves humans had left Lee to die, cold and alone, exhaling his final breath into the spaces between the branches. A few pine needles would breath because of him.

A belly splitting pain shot through House, turning his whispered cries of grief into resounding decibels of pain. His mourning suddenly took second position behind the physical agony that pushed its way forwards until it was proverbially shouting in his face. House lay his sons' body aside and crawled back to the other tree next to where his two living sons still lay. They had been startled by his appearance and the noises he was making instinctively shocked them to silence.

House repositioned himself against the tree trunk, spreading his legs again. This baby was coming and arguing on the way that no life or death was going to stop it.

House briefly considered letting it be death. But that would assure the same for Jordan and Reed and he was all they had. House laughed at his two poor sons pathetic luck of having him as a father.

A spasm tore through him and House yelled hoarsely. Although he felt the baby pushing and being pushed, something else felt . . .wrong. Fumbling around below his scrotum with his fingers, he discovered the birth canal had still not descended. It was not pushing against the thinning skin, not popping through. The baby was coming steady but there was no where for it to go.

The muscles of his abdomen controlling the contracting of the womb sac would continue to try and push the baby out regardless of the wall of flesh in its way and, if the canal did not show itself, the separation of the sac from his inner abdominal wall, the baby, the blood and fluid would all end up wedged together in a compacted gory mass inside the hard cradle of his pelvic bones. There it would remain until it festered - until he bled out - until it killed him.

The babys' life would end and so would he and so then Jordan and Reed.

Pouring sweat from exhaustion and pain, his sinuses plugged with snot from crying, House looked and felt around with his hands for anything he could use to cut into himself and make an opening for the birth duct. His right fingers brushed against a flat stone and he looked at it through watery eyes.

Shale. Rock that had once been mud layers deep in the earth. Some old ocean had been here once upon an old time. Then a new time had arrived, taken the river mud in hand, dried it, draining the water away and pulling the plug in the basement of itself, eventually coughing up a huge plateau of rocky mountains in its place.

The small representation of the mountains, the flat stone of shale had been split at one point and one edge, House judged, though a ragged serration, was probably sharp enough for the extemporaneous operation. House made the call. _Talk about open-air theater._ House thought. _I hope I know what I'm doing and don't botch the delivery or I'll have to sue._ His mind was playing silliness, trying to calm the tremor in his hands. Using the stone on his own flesh would be an unrefined hack-job, like cutting into summer sausage with a butter knife.

House found a flat stick and shoved it between his teeth, steeling himself for the sharp flick of the stone. Again he had to do almost everything by feel since he needed two hands and his very hands were the things in the way, blocking his ability to see the site of the incision. With his left hand he lifted his scrotum out of the way (cold mountain air had taken care of his penis for him), and with his right he lay the edge of the rock against his very tender, swollen perineum, took a shuddering breath and cut in.

It hurt worse than he expected but he squeezed his eyes shut and bit down on the wood in his mouth while he kept cutting without let-up, until he had a two inch long gash. He didn't have to look now to see if the birth canal had dropped. It had instantly and without regard for his mounting pain, pushed its head through like a worm from its muck hole.

House leaned back against the tree and let his body do the rest, his caterpillar-ing abdominals now doing all the work. Baby number four was a week early and House was a daddy again if they both survived it. He was nearly dead inside never-the-less. Lee was gone, House wanted to follow.

But when he looked over at Jordan and Reed, staying was the only possible choice. Losing his youngest son had not diminished his love for them at all, but pain and being cold and hungry, and maybe lost also since he couldn't remember from which direction he had come, and having a baby alone in the woods were keeping him occupied, elbowing out of the way calm and reason. Living stretches out for complicated, often miserable decades, a glutton for troubles. Death floats in with ease holding a platter of painless sleep. Sometimes it was tough to discern which was the better meal.

House distracted himself from the pain with the tales he might someday tell the baby, that is, if he was still alive in any recognizable form. Stories like: You were born outdoors in the arms of Mother Nature. He laughed in between yelps of pain as his body squeezed his fourth son inch by inch from his body. He had hours of spasms to endure to learn whether his child would live or not.

It was almost like having a diagnostic case again. Almost like being back in Princeton waiting for a prognosis.

All things, no matter how different they first seemed, were really the same. Good times happened when you weren't looking and bad times arrived raw and demanding.

Life was presumptuous but never unexpected.

Kind of like having a baby.

XXX

"We need a plastic container." Johnson said. "A pretty strong one 'cause gasoline eats through certain plastics like acid, but it still has to have some "give"."

The four men made another thorough search of the house, barn and out-sheds. Wilson came up with a selection of plastic milk jugs. He brought a good handful of them inside and dumped them on the kitchen table.

Johnson examined each one. He ignored most but finally picked one from the line-up and held it up for their inspection. "This one. It's an older one, the plastic's thicker and probably not the easily biodegradable type. Good for a thousand years kind."

"So we put the gas in this and-?" Chase asked.

"We fill it maybe half way at most. Then we seal it so there's no possibility of leaks, but first we push all the air out of it."

"That won't pressurize the fuel." Foreman said.

Johnson said. "True." He pantomimed wrapping his left hand with his right. "But wrap it up as tightly as we can with rubber bands or even rope and we pressurize the gas inside - enough that it'll do what we need it to. We rip the back seat out of the car, suspend the bottle from the roof, and punch a hole in the gas tank. You make a pin hole in the plastic bottle at the right time, gas sprays out in tiny droplets and you light your fuse." He nodded his head at Foreman. "Then you dive the hell out of the car and run your ass to the hills."

Foreman filed all that way. "Crude but it ought to work."

Neither Wilson nor Chase looked happy about the involved risks. Chase said. "Don't punch a hole in that gas tank any sooner than you need to or the fumes'll accumulate in the car and you'll be puking or passing out long before you get near the house."

Foreman sighed. His fuse was finished. "I'll keep the drivers' window open just to make sure." He leaned back in his chair, stretching a crick out of his sore back. "You guys be sure to get inside the fence as fast as you can and find House and our kids. I don't care if you have to bulldoze every shack."

Johnson warned. "Some of Hayes' people'll be going for the guns. Try and get there first."

Foreman corrected. "_Kids_ first, and House. Then we'll see about the weapons." Foremans' chest was tight with worry but he was shaking too. It was a weird unsettling mix.

Some of the shock had worn off and Wilson had recovered enough to feel like he was about to do a scene from a bad cop show. "Where do we rendezvous?" He asked. "Where do we meet after?" He stood, a little unsteady on his feet. He was having trouble getting his arms and legs to obey him.

Foreman shrugged. "At the gate I guess. Whoever gets the kids and House first, gets the hell _out_ first. Don't wait for the rest. I'd like to say this is all for one or something less retarded, but we'll all going to be on our own in there."

Foreman stood. He slipped a few matches of the one box of matches they had left into his pocket to lite his home-made fuse. He hoped like hell it would work. They couldn't test it without actually using it. Once lit, it would be hard to put out again and they might lose valuable lead if that happened.

Foreman slipped into his coat. "Let's go." Only a single day had passed since House had been taken but it felt like far too much time. Foreman refused to think about that yet. But he promised himself that, if there was no one left alive to rescue, he was going to take great pleasure in killing Hayes.

XXX

The forest was under the full light of dawn and the sun had finally manage to cut through the thickest branches and warm his face a little. His ass, though, was freezing, his legs almost numb with cold and his jaw sore from biting down on the stick in his mouth.

One, two hours had passed and House could feel the slow advancement of the baby. The tiny head was inches from the ragged opening he had cut into his perineum, but inches in labor-time measured out to hours. For all that this child, a week early, could not possibly weigh more than a pound, House felt like he was trying to pass a football.

He wondered what the guys were doing? They would know by now, of course, that he and the children were gone. But he doubted they knew much else. And unless they followed the same line of reasoning he had, it wasn't likely they would find him. He would have to get through this on his own and walk out of here naked with three kids in his arms.

House wasn't convinced he could do it. He was thin but not severely weakened from his ordeal. However he was cold and hungry and worn out and his chest felt hollow. He knew mentally and emotionally he was not operating at a hundred present anymore and he also knew he wouldn't make it very far on his leg afterward.

But what he feared most of all was his bodys' autonomic response to post-birth exhaustion - an involuntary sleep of up to twelve hours. Nature may have picked him and others like him to be the dads of the future, but it had also determined that he could not do it alone. Nature wrote in some hastily figured code that said: _Give birth and go to sleep. _Meaning the sire takes the baby for the first day or so. Genetically it seemed to be a new law in his blue eyed, re-written brain and body functions. If he went to sleep out here, the new baby would die and probably Jordan and Reed too.

House clutched the sharp rock he had used to cut an opening for the birth duct in his left hand and, as he panted and labored on, decided that, if he had to, he would cut himself to stay awake long enough to get the kids to some sort of shelter and safety. Internal labor pain certainly kept him alert enough so external pain ought to work too. Maybe if he could make the pain continue, and make it bad enough, he could temporarily cheat that new genetic law and stay awake for a while.

In between gasps of pain, House chuckled at himself. _Not out of the woods yet._

XXX

Readying the bomb-car took just about ten minutes to remove the seat, pry up the flooring and hack their way through the aluminum to expose the gas tank and generally set things up as precisely as possible.

Foreman had one end of the fuse taped to the top of the gas-tank and the other laying within reach on the passenger seat. He had several strike anywhere matches ready to light and a block of wood to keep the gas pedal depressed when it came time to start the show and abandoned the moving car. He also had a claw hammer wrapped with a thin dish towel so he could puncture the half full gas tank without causing a spark (which would ignite the gas and pre-maturely start and end the show before even the opening curtain).

Foreman climbed into behind the wheel and Chase leaned in to kiss him.

"You know," Foreman said to him as he turned the key in the ignition. The car purred to life. "We'll be minus one car after this and out of gas in the other. Whether this works or not, we're stuck here."

Chase bit his lip. "If House and the kids are gone, which one of us is going to care?"

Foreman put the car in drive. "Let's go." It was very early in the morning and they had a ten mile drive. Not far but Foreman planned to take it easy so not to slosh the fuel around too much in either the fuel tank or the half quart of gas in the bottle suspended from the ceiling and hanging uncomfortable close to the back of his head.

Johnson had done a bang-up job, Foreman thought, on the Molotov cocktail-type plastic bottle bomb, so one pin-hole made near the bottom should spray the fuel out nicely all over the back seat and gas tank below. It _should_ work, but he wasn't planning on hanging around to find out for sure.

XXX

House thought he heard what sounded like a shot-gun or a car back-fire but the forest ate up most sounds and he couldn't be sure it wasn't just wind through the brittle branches of the tall pines. He was almost seven hours into his labor and in the last hour Junior had advanced into the cold, cold world another inch. Just one or two to go.

But House knew he was nearing the end of his strength and between spasms, his eyes kept dropping closed as his body fought for sleep while his mind chanted _no-no. . . _

There was no one coming to help. He was going to birth this baby alone, and then his little family of three and himself were going to die.

House was strangely amused by it. He had to be a ridiculous sight - old, naked, crippled man sitting against a tree in the forest with his legs spread wide, having a baby, the squirrels chattering in the branches overhead.

_If a man giving birth screams in the wood, does anybody hear him?_

XXX

Part VII ASAP


	7. Chapter 7

**RIDDLED WITH HEAVEN**

Part VII

By GeeLadyff

(Sequel to _Gone With the World_)

Summary: Some will destroy Eden to reach Paradise.

Rating: M for Mature. **Slash**. Violence. **Rape**. Themes of **prejudice** and **intolerance.** Language. This is an _**MPreg!!**_

Pairing:House _plus_ Wilson/Foreman/Chase.

Disclaimer: I manipulate the sexy House and others to my hearts content. No fee's, no earnings,...just fun!

**-**

**-**

_**Since all life is futility, then the decision to exist must be the most irrational of all.**_

_Emile M. Cioran_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hell came to New Dawn.

Foremans' ankle turned under him as he threw open the heavy door of the sedan and leaped from the moving vehicle.

"Ah!" He grunted, biting his lip as a knife of pain traveled up his leg, but it was a small price to pay for knowing inside Hayes was soon to be flash baked like a chicken on a flame-spit.

Remembering to tuck in his shoulder, Foreman rolled once and came to a resting ball. Unfolding his long legs he pushed off with his hands onto to his one good and one newly sore foot, paying no attention to the nearby explosion or the flaming bits that began falling from the sky. The shouts of running men, emerging from their modest dwellings, halted in their tracks to watch the horror show amid the choking smoke.

Foreman skip-hopped away from the consuming fire, ignoring the shouts and gasps of the milling populace who stood awe struck, not knowing what to do. No member of Hayes' collective appeared particularly interested in forming a water bucket line. In any event, trying to douse such an inferno would be like spitting on a campfire. Most of the numb observers simply stood a safe distance from the intense blaze, their bugged eyes fixed curiously on their leaders' home slowly disintegrating before their eyes.

In minutes, the house gave them the show they were waiting for. Nearly engulfed in flames, chemically hot plumes fed by old, lead paint and tar-paper siding ate their way through the dried wood shingles, melting the bitumen sealant and waving their elongated orange fingers at the morning sky. In no time the structure was falling into itself in a fountain of orange sparks, the one hundred year old dwelling collapsing to embers while the belly of the blaze coughed out rolling billows of black smoke that rose and stretched East on the prevailing wind.

Ignoring it all, Foreman began a systematic hobble from the nearest cabin to the next looking for House and the babies, unceremoniously flinging open one door after another without a knock of warning. Each tiny house he found was either empty or contained a frightened person, shock on their face as one who was just rudely awakened.

Ten shacks searched and no sign of anyone he loved - "Dammit!" Foreman said. He limped away in the gathering light to find Chase, Wilson and their new and very useful family friend.

-

-

-

Johnson quickly climbed from the second vehicle when it stopped and headed toward the animal barns, ignoring the shouts of Chase and Wilson urging him to forget about the weapons. No matter what any of them said, without guns their success today, assuming it even transpired, would be short lived. Without weapons to ensure their safe return to their home, and a few loaded rifles of advice for anyone who would in the future presume to come knocking with an agenda, their actions today would be wasted.

Johnson kicked at the dirt and grass between the shabby barns where the gun stash was rumored to be. Looking for a handle, a rope - anything that might hint of a hollow beneath the earth, he got down on his knees and dug frantically.

He found his prize in the form of a chain attached at one end of a flat palette made from a half dozen two by sixes nailed together on two cross boards. He yanked on the contraption and with a few sweaty heaves on the chain, the wooden flat slid aside to reveal a hollow beneath concealing a small cache of guns. Each was wrapped in a sheet and there were not as many weapons as he had assumed would be there, given Hayes' customary bragging. But there was enough that if Hayes, Raithe or any of the _faithful _survived, they could easily re-arm themselves and take up their heavenly calling with a freshly oiled chamber.

Johnson was not about to let that happen. He gathered in his arms three hunting rifles, stuffed the only two handguns in his pockets, making sure the safeties were on, and began stuffing boxes of ammunition in his shirt front. That done, he swiftly removed all the firing pins from the remaining guns, leaving those behind. Chase and Wilson didn't have many places to search where House or the children might be and once he had stashed the weapons in the car, Johnson climbed back behind the wheel and drove around looking for them.

It did not take him long to locate his new friends. Chase, Foreman and Wilson were gathered around one side of a small metal shed, like the kind used to store garden equipment, which door had been kicked out from the inside.

Wilsons' hopes soared. "This was where they were keeping him."

Chase nodded. "Let's hope he got away."

"Anyone following you?" Johnson asked. "At the house? Anyone try to stop you?"

Foreman shook his head. "I think the kingpins of this religious psycho-farm are too busy dying to organize a posse." Foreman looked at their young friend with a respectable admiration. "Good cocktail." he said.

"Good delivery." Johnson answered then held up the two rifles he had pilfered. "The ones I left behind won't work anymore."

Foreman limped back to the car. "Come on. Maybe House got away with the kids somehow."

Chase asked reasonably enough, "Where do we look?"

-

-

-

House felt strangely comfortable. A warm, fuzzy cocoon had settled down on his flesh and though he knew it was hypothermia, he didn't mind. Funny how his brain knew he was going to die but didn't seem worried about it. The other times, like when he almost drowned, was shot or was tossed around a rolling vehicle - all those times seemed a century ago - his body had gone into overdrive racing his heart to keep his blood pressure up, his circulation moving and his brain sparking like a Roman Candle.

This kind of dying had snuck up on him like a cat and was slowly curling itself around his body, giving him a sense of warmth and contentment. Dying of the cold was unlike anything he had experienced before. Alone in the woods he heard his own strange voice burst out in a series of humorless chuckles and, quickly used up, fall to the forest floor. The thing that made him laugh was it wasn't really that cold out. A few degrees above freezing was his tired guess. But it was still too cold, he knew, to be out in it naked, hungry, thirsty and in pain.

Jordan and Reid slept. Every so often, he would check their body temperature and heart-rate by wiggling two fingers inside their wool wraps, laying them on the center of their delicate chests. They were alive and snug, though getting very seriously dehydrated. He had done his best to bring moisture to their bodies by spitting his own saliva into their mouths, but his own mouth had quickly gone dry. House wasn't sure if their repose was from sleepiness or from wooziness because of lack of nourishment. Maybe both.

Warm slickness leaked out between his legs. He was bleeding again. House shifted slightly to ease the ache in his leg. His thigh argued mercilessly over its treatment of late and was now out-shouted almost everything else. Even the pangs from birthing his still-born baby, now lying beside Lee in his own funeral wrap, had disappeared.

House sighed. There was no point in worrying about the leg since he didn't have any Vicodin or even an aspirin in the medicine cabinet back home. His eyes felt very tired. His body felt very warm and other than the leg, was numb. Even the little pebbles and twigs that had scratched at his cheeks so badly when he initially lay down around his kids, had vanished. He was probably dying now.

He was sure going to miss Wilson. House grudgingly admitted he would miss them all, as annoying as they sometimes were. Then he corrected himself and remembered he wasn't going to _be_ anywhere to feel the actual missing part. So they would be the ones who would miss _him_. But Wilson most of all.

He loved that idiot.

-

-

-

"Christ- he's shocky."

House hadn't been all that difficult to locate once they discovered there was really only one direction for House to have gone. The woods would be far too difficult for a crippled man, so Johnson suggested they check the path that led to the outhouses. "Eventually, a couple of miles on, it runs into Hayes' property fence. No way could House have gotten over that. Not while carrying the babies."

They had found House laying on his side, his body wrapped around two of their sons. The other, the youngest, was missing. "Quick." Foreman slipped off his coat and wrapped it around Houses' body. "Cover them up."

Chase shed his coat and did likewise. "I wonder how long he's been lying here like this?"

"Check the kids." Foreman instructed. "I'll start looking for Lee. He must be around here somewh-"

"-Foreman." It was Wilson.

Foreman looked behind him. Wilson was on his knees across the dirt foot path. Foreman could just see two small bundles wrapped in dirty linen. One looked like Houses' tee-shirt. "Oh, jesus, . . ."

Foreman scrambled to Wilsons' side. Without looking it was obvious what the bundles contained. One was about the size of Lee, or the size of his body. The other was much smaller. Houses' new-born baby.

Wilson stretched out his hand to unwrap Lee but Foreman stopped him. "Don't. You don't want to remember him like this, man." As calm as he sounded, he was aching inside for Wilson. Lee, though by Wilson, had belonged to all of them. All had come from House, who might be dying.

"We gotta get House to the car and back home."

Wilson seemed to have not heard him. He stayed on his knees, frozen in place and staring at the still forms hoping for signs of life.

"Wilson-"

Wilson turned to look at him in slow motion, as though Foreman and everything around him was unfamiliar. He was just a stranger looking down at some other fathers' lifeless children. He knew why they were dead but he couldn't _accept_ they were dead. Innocent people, innocent children, should not be left to die for no purpose in which they had no choice. It was a cruelty he could not process. Not yet.

Wilson didn't say anything but Foreman urged him. "Wilson. It's _House_. He's going to _die._ We have to go _now." _Foreman took his arm. "And you gotta' carry the babies. _Reid. Jordan_." He said their names to try and snap Wilson out of his shock and get him to his feet, then directed him to where Jordan and Reid lay inside the curled up form of their hypothermic, unconscious birth-father. "The kids _need_ you."

Wilson recovered his composure enough to obey and once he was occupied with the babies, Foreman himself took just a half moment to look at their mummy-wrapped babies that Hayes had murdered. Even if Hayes had not laid a finger on the new-born, he was guilty by neglect, torture and starvation. By proxy he had murdered Houses' youngest who by his blue pallor, had clearly been still-born. Hayes had starved and abused a pregnant man and as a result House had delivered his son a week early alone, out here in the freezing dark.

Gathering a few rocks - there were not many to be had - and a short section of fallen tree stump that had been torn and abandoned by a hungry bear, Foreman gave his sons the only burial time allowed. He said a quick prayer, the only one he remembered, the one his mother had taught him over and over: _"Now I lay me down to sleep." _He whispered,_ "I pray..." _His voice-box was pinched off with a tremendous surge of grief, but by sheer will he fought it back until he had gathered back some semblance of control. To arrive at the end of this day with House and the kids alive and well, he needed to keep a level head.

Some day they would mourn. But first they had to live.

It took a good twenty minutes to carry House back to the car where Johnson waited, shot-gun in hand ready to shoot at any threat. Wilson climbed in the front seat and slid over so Chase could hand him the babies and then he squeeze in beside him. Wilson clutched Jordan and Reid to his chest, his eyes on the floor, staring sightlessly as the world sped by outside the windshield, his long fingers wrapped around their tiny heads. Chase, rifle clutched to his chest but the barrel aimed out the side window ready to fire, kept glancing over at Wilson.

Wilsons' eyes were crow-footed with tension.

With Chase riding shot-gun, Johnson floored the gas pedal, kicking up a shower of gravel and twigs as they sped away. Foreman sat in the back seat with Houses' head on his lap, urging the unconscious man to wake up by rendering gentle slaps on his cold cheeks. Around Houses' feet, bloodless from the cold, he had wrapped his coat. Houses' body remained limp and unresponsive and Foreman rubbed his mates' arms to encourage the slowly returning warmth.

Foreman twisted himself around to look back through the rear glass to the compound. Slowly it and the smoke rising above it disappeared between the trees and the curve of the rough, mountain road.

They'd done it. The only catch was, they had no idea if Hayes had actually been inside the house so they had no idea if he was actually dead. None of them had spotted the man elsewhere but then, Foreman reminded himself, none of them other than House or Johnson even knew what he looked like.

Raithe was another problem. Had he been inside the house too? Or was he still at large, hugging his beloved gun to his chest, on the hunt for the so-called devil-conceived likes of himself and his companions?

He hoped not. Maybe God, if he was anywhere at all, would this time rally to their court, strike down any surviving bring-ers of destruction and leave them to their hard-won peace. But somehow he doubted it.

-

-

-

"We need to stitch him up." Chase was examining the ragged tear House himself had obviously made to accommodate the early arrival of his still-born baby. "Let's flush it while he's still out." He let his eyes fall gently on their unconscious, abused mate. "He's been through enough pain."

Chase scrubbed in and he, with Foremans' assistance, made short work of a wash of bicarbonate of soda and salt water, finishing up with a few stitches. All they had to work with was ordinary sewing thread but a few loops and a small bandage and Chase was done. Foreman washed up the wound, applied a folded bandage and together they ran a war, soapy cloth over Houses' body to clean off days worth of sweat and grime. Laying him down on the kitchen floor, the warmest spot in the house, they covered him with thick quilts and let him rest to awaken on his own.

With his circulation approaching normal House began to shiver. From his head to his toes his autonomic system shook him like a maraca, expediting the process of bringing his core temperature up.

After a half hour House finally stirred and awoke on the hard floor, a roaring fire in the black furnace not three feet from his back. Waves of delicious heat filled the room and him with healing warmth. His first clear thought was he wanted to stay there and never have to move. He wanted a years' worth of lazing right there where the fire didn't die and food was just a demand away. But his second thought was -

"Where's the kids?" He tried to sit up but was stopped by Chase with hand on his shoulder, forcing him to lie still. "They're fine. Wilson's feeding them right now. They got chilled and a little dehydrated but they're okay." He moved his hand to lay it against Houses' forehead. "You on the other hand, damn near froze to death."

House struggled to sit up and this time Chase did not stop him. "I want to see them." House said, struggling to get his legs under him.

Chase stood and helped House to his feet. House wobbled on his good leg and, realizing he was still naked, wrapped his grey blanket around himself.

"Wilson has them in the next room." Chase said, resigned that his stubborn lover was not going to listen to good sense and stay warm and still for a while. Chase retrieved Houses' cane from behind the kitchen door and handed it to him. House took it without a word and limped into the living room.

Wilson had Jordan in his arms and the baby was sucking contentedly on one of the two baby bottles they had brought with them from New Jersey. Reid was fast asleep beside Wilson on the couch, wrapped in a wool blanket, his exquisitely tiny face the only part peeking out.

House sat beside Wilson and motioned to take Jordan from his arms. Chase cleared his throat quickly and House caught the tiny head shake Chase threw him.

That's when House clued in that Wilson had not looked up from feeding Jordan, that Wilson was acting a little weird actually, like a man sitting alone in his livingroom feeding his son, very still and quiet as though there was no others present.

House felt a shiver go up and down his spine at Wilsons' dull, empty eyes that looked down on Jordan. His stony look said more than any shirt rending weeping would have. House knew it wasn't his fault Lee was dead and if he questioned Wilson on it, he knew Wilson would say the same. But it still hurt to see Wilson so _shriveled_ by it, like his soul had dried up inside.

"I tried to save him." House said. When Wilson didn't answer, he wondered whether Wilson had lost a part of his mind too. His own heart ached for his dead children but he had cried already himself out over Lee out in the forest, and decided to leave his grief there. To leave it behind and survive or carry it with him and die.

Now he had just strength enough to live for his two remaining sons and just power enough in his soul to empathize for his mate. Because, as the birth-father House understood like none of them ever could what it was to lose a child. His grief had not only filled his world, it had stripped it of all meaning. Out there, circling his freezing body around his still breathing babies to block out the cold, he had discovered new meaning through them. Applying that meaning to living and to himself once more, it was only for Jordan and Reid that he choose to keep fighting and not lie down die beside his dead children and cease all effort. Again, he had chosen meaning and with it had come purpose.

At his gentle words Wilson nodded. "I know." He said. "I know. No one could have done anything. But I don't want to hear about Lee again. . ." He sighed heavily.

" . . ._ever_."

-

-

-

One night, weeks later, Foreman and Chase made it clear how much they had missed House. And House was pregnant by sunrise the next day to which he complained loudly.

Wilson was happy for them all but declined their suggestions to join them in pending fatherhood and even Houses' attempts to entice Wilson to bed were met with polite excuses.

"Lee is dead." House took him to task over it. "_I'm_ not." But the hurt look on Wilson's face made House ease back and give it up. It was difficult to know why but as hard as it had been to lose Lee and his new-born, the children in his belly were almost enough to help him forget. Enough to give him reason to be content again, to be joyful over the presence of their growth inside him. House had discovered it was the weirdest but most wonderful source of happiness.

House smiled at Jordans' round-as-a-cats' green eyes looking up at him with delight from above chubby cheeks. He was alive and his children were safe. That meant today life was good.

Chase was busy with the animals and Wilson and Foreman were off on a berry finding expedition. Jess' was somewhere outside he thought. Helping Chase probably.

Jordans' pink, puckered mouth laughed at him in a babies' un-ashamed, honest way. House smiled back though his five month old could not possibly have understood the joke of his one daddy being pregnant by two of his four other dads, which House had spent a few moments explaining to his son in so many words. "Two wee-wee's, and those not so "wee", equals one pregnant daddy and two more brothers for you.

"So daddy's funny?" House asked, adjusting the bottle and encouraged Jordan to take the nipple again. The baby forgot his funny daddy and sucked contentedly.

"Are you laughing at me kid?" House shifted Jordan to the left side of his lap. His right thigh ached. Once the kids were asleep, it was time for a hot water soak. "I'll make a House out of you yet."

He felt a tiny kick in his belly and was reminded that soon his days were about to grow longer with formula making and diaper changing. He would have four kids and so four potential delicate patients' with all the colds, measles and other common childhood maladies that would inevitably strike each one. But with four dads all pitching in to spoil them and him, it wasn't such a bad way to spend a life.

"We'll have to tell Chase and Foreman to milk the goats twice a day as soon-" A strange sound behind him cut off his one-sided conversation and he turned, expecting to see Danny or Chase in for a drink and a rest but instead he got an eye full of black rifle barrel and a grey haired man standing in the living room doorway with it resting on his shoulder, the sight trained directly on him.

"I missed getting burned in the hell fire your cock-buddies made." The man explained. "I was out on a hunt."

House sucked in a breath. The checkered coat around the mans' shoulders made it clear who was behind the words. Though he had not clearly seen his face that day in the forest, Raithe, by his hate-filled frozen words, was easily recognizable.

Raithe stared with dead, grey eyes at House, the suckling child in his lap and his swollen under-belly. "Thought so." He sneered contemptuously. "A goddamn mutant _Blue._ I _knew_ you were one of them from the start. I could smell it that first day. I could smell the men on ya'. I could _smell_ thestink ofsin." He said, spitting the words out like misshapen icicles. "Hayes didn't believe me at first but he was fool. That's why he's dead. God choose to cleanse him by fire."

House himself was filled with a whole lot of hate. "I notice how dirty your nails are, asshole. I've got lamp oil and some matches if you'd like to wash up."

Ignoring the macabre joke, Raithe waived the barrel of his gun at House. "Move away from the spawn."

House felt his heart in his throat and the fear in his gut but all he showed to the murderer was his hatred. "No chance in hell."

Raithe frowned, apparently un-used to being disobeyed, especially when he was holding his very convincing bullet powered friend. "I said move, or I'll shoot you where you sit, and the babies go by collateral damage - slowly - instead of quick with a bullet to the head."

House moved his body to the right slightly to shield Jordan and Reid from Raithe and to protect his growing belly. "Fuck you, psycho."

Raithe steadied the rifle on his shoulder and bent his eye to the sighting, though he need not have since he was only standing fifteen feet from his target. "I'm warning you, mutant. Move or I'm going to kill all of you right now."

"Then shoot, you cock-sucker, but I'm not moving. I'm doing nothing - _nothing_ - for you." House couldn't help himself, he was suddenly screaming at Raithe, gun barrel lined up with his right eye or not. He didn't care because he was seething, so violently _angry_ at Raithe and Hayes and their self appointed, self righteous crowns; saviors of Fuck-all.

House wanted to kill the man with his bare hands, but Jordan was sucking from his bottle, unaware of the violence that was occurring in his little house by the mountains and when House looked down at him, all the rage drained from him like scummy water, leaving him feeling the only real love that had survived the end of the world: love a person and make a person to love. His lovers, his children. Nothing else remained.

But his feeling for Raithe and his kind - "You murdering _fuck!_ A god-fired, glowing maggot on a pile of shit is _still_ a maggot on shit. Fuck you and the donkey you rode in on." House didn't turn another eye his way, ignoring Raithe altogether. Maybe Chase had heard him yell and maybe not. But if Raithe shot him, then he was shot. If he died with his kids, it was better than living without them or them living on with the kind of pseudo human Raithe just barely passed for.

A shot was fired and Raithe jerked from the kick-back of the powerful rifle in his hand.

But when he felt no impact, House turned to look and though the loud noise had set the babies crying, he found himself un-injured. When the smoke cleared, he understood why.

A growing circle of red seeped through Raithes' shirt front, quickly soaking it through. Raithes' body fell like he'd been axed to reveal Jess Johnson standing behind him, a hand-gun raised to the level of where Raithes' beating heart used to be. Like a man in an unpleasant dream, Johnson watched him fall. When Raithe jerked for the last time and finally lay still with the blood pooling on the floor beside him, Johnson walked the few steps over to toe him with his boot. Then he did it again just to make sure.

Tossing the gun aside, he held his own hands out in front of him, watching with fascination as they shook like fall leaves in a storm. "Oh, jesus . . ." Johnson said.

House lay Jordan on the couch and went over to Johnson, poking Raithes' flabby stomach with his cane as he went. The enemy didn't move. All the enemies were now dead.

Johnson ran fingers through his uncombed hair, trying to brush it (and perhaps his own part in the death of a human being), aside. "Jesus," He said again "I - don't know - I mean it's - I just . . .never _killed_ anyone before."

House poked the body again. "Well," He jabbed it once more. It was best to be absolutely certain. "I'm glad it was _this_ one."

-

-

-

Raithe was not buried. He was dragged to the fields and left for the coyotes.

Chase complained that it was a fate far too good for him. "_New_ Dawn." He sneered. "What a joke."

"One more man-made paradise," Was Houses' comment, "shot all to hell."

-

-

-

Later that night, "Johnson saved Houses' life. He should stay here with us." Foreman said to Chase and Wilson.

Johnson was grateful. "I'd like to. I don't want to go back to New Dawn. No one would want me there now. And my name isn't Jess. It's Danny. That was my given name. Jess was just a name Hayes stuck me with. You know, to make fun of me - "Jesse' _James_". I always hated it."

Danny. It suited him. He was, after all, so young.

"How old are you anyway?" Foreman asked. "Really?"

"Nineteen."

Chase was curious. "Why can't you go back to New Dawn? Hayes and Raithe are dead, and the towns' people were never the problem. Or were they?"

Danny looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, no, but I'm tired of hiding and some of the people there looked up to Hayes. I don't think they'd appreciate my part in his death. And this sheriff thing - I just took the job so I'd be safe."

"Safe from what?" Wilson asked.

The young man looked at each of them in turn, as though unable to decide on an answer. Finally, using his index fingers and thumbs, he fumbled delicately at the front of his eyeballs. When his fingers came away, they each held a thin, brown colored, convex membrane with a tiny clear circle in the center.

"Contacts?" Foreman asked though he could see for himself. With the contacts out Danny's eyes were the color of a Blue Jays' wing.

"Yeah. I wore 'em for years after Outbreak. Too scared not to. I knew I wasn't sick or a mutated Blue - 'least I don't _think_ I was - er - _am_." Danny pulled a tiny jar with a lid from is pocket. "I kept them in here at night in salt water." He said, shaking it a little. "And then when Hayes started up with his religion to eradicate all Blues and any who slept with them . . .but now I guess I don't need 'em."

Wilson stared at the sparkling color in the young mans' eyes. Almost as blue as Houses', he thought. Two blues equal a blue. Of course, they'd all want the kid to bed House as soon as possible to bring another Blue eye into the world. But Danny was just a kid. Wilson felt it wasn't right. Not yet it wasn't. It was too soon.

Wilson went to look for House and found him upstairs in the larger bedroom on the softest mattress with the babies wrapped in their fluffy blankets. House was sleeping on his left side, Jordan was deep into an afternoon snooze and Reid was lying on his back, kicking his legs and playing with his tiny, milk chocolate fingers.

Wilson lay down and let Reid grab his own large finger, letting his son examine it the only way a baby knew how - by putting it in his mouth and having a taste. Wilson laughed a little. It was the first time he had felt any mirth since discovering his son dead and his lover almost.

Suddenly House was looking at him. He hadn't moved or spoken, he'd just woken up and was watching Wilson play with the baby.

"Danny's staying." Wilson announced.

"Danny?"

"Jess. Danny's his real name. He's staying here with us."

House nodded. He knew Wilson better than he had his own mother. "For some reason that bothers you."

Wilson looked insulted. "No it doesn't."

"Give me a break." House huffed. "You're an open book. You've got jealousy written all over your face which begs the question: Jealousy over what?"

Wilson lay on his back, one hand above his head. "His eyes are blue. He's not mutated, but he needs an examination to be certain. Anyway, his eyes are blue. He wore contacts all this time, to protect himself."

House didn't have to guess from whom. "Smart kid."

"He did what he had to do to survive, just like you did."

"Now because he's staying you're trying to find a reason to like him. And because he's a blue eye, naturally he'll have to hump me somewhere along the line to make a blue eyed baby. That's why you're having to _try_ to find a reason."

"You should. I mean _he_ should. It's good. Another blue. Means you can have blue eyed children. It's a really good thing-"

"-He says while he grinds his teeth to a nub. If you want another baby, all you have to do-"

"- Lee's dead."

House took a deep breath. "You're not the only one who lost him."

Wilson leaned over and kissed House on the lips, but it wasn't enthusiastic. "I know."

"I'm still here. You plan on avoiding me until my do-abilities' worn out?"

"He's a nice kid. Danny I mean."

"And you're a nice idiot. And yes, just _you_." House grabbed Wilsons' hand and lay it, almost roughly, against his distended stomach, taut with two babies. "I'm due in eleven days. Chase and Foreman'll be daddies again, then it's your turn, pops."

Wilson let a tiny smile lift one corner of his mouth. They could try again he supposed. He wanted to forget and remember Lee all at the same time. Wanting another child had felt like a betrayal at first. But the desire to plant another baby in House was too strong to ignore. Plus, he had been thinking of a name lately, like Paul or Peter. He liked David too. Yeah, probably David. David James Lee House.

"Okay, dad."

"But _all_ the kids get my last name. I'm the birth-dad. You guys might get to name them, but _my_ name goes on the bank accounts."

Wilson smiled and kissed his lover. "Whatever you say, dad."

-

-

-

House yelled in his agony to push out baby number eight. Tiny, blue eyed Seamus Drake Johnson House set up a wail and after a thorough examination by Foreman, he was declared healthy. Though Lee had been murdered and House's still-born buried without a name, they still had six living healthy children.

Twenty year old Danny held his first born with shaking hands and staring at the baby like it was a Martian, until Chase showed him how to hold him and dry him off. The new dad was sweating more than House.

Wilson wiped the sweat from Houses' face and neck. Already Houses' eyes were closing of their own accord to pull him into twelve hours of healing sleep. "I love you." Wilson whispered into his ear, quietly enough that the others didn't hear. He still liked to say things to House that was for them alone. He wondered if it the same was true for the others.

House was almost out. "You too . . ." He said inside a sigh. "How's the baby? How's Seamus?"

Wilson stroked Houses' temple with two fingers. "He's fine. Healthy."

"Stupid name. It sounds like a dermatological rash. Remind me to tell Danny that I'll be calling my son Drake."

Wilson laughed a little. "Sure."

Jordan and Rowan by Chase, Reid and Gordon by Foreman, David James by himself and now Seamus by Danny. Six beautiful sons and Wilson knew he already wanted at least one more. Probably all the fellows felt the same. They would all be hungering after House in turn and they would all be taking on more work as a result. Being a daddy was a twenty-four-seven shift but somehow that didn't matter.

"And get in the kitchen." House ordered. "Make me some formula. With this many kids you'll be on formula duty from now on, pops. And Danny's my new baby-sitter. Look at him. Scared, dumb kid." But the words were wrapped in affection.

Wilson assured him. "Whatever you say, dad."

"I wanna' see'im." But Houses' eyes were closed now and seeing his new son would have to wait.

"Go to sleep. He'll be here tomorrow."

House fought against his bodys' demands and lost. He was out.

Wilson kissed his forehead. Life in the new world was so strange. It was always new and changing. It had shocked them to action and nearly struck them down. But with House it was still acceptable. The kids, the fellows, the new world, probably everything would be all right. And if not, some-damn-how they'd make their small corner of it all right.

No one owed it to them but they did owe it to each other. It was the only good way into the future, really.

"We'll all be here, babe', . .

. . . tomorrow and tomorrow."

-

-

-

END

_**How beautiful maleness is, if it finds its right expression. **_

**_I am planning a second sequel to Gone With the World; to continue where Riddled With Heaven left off. As soon as time permits._**

_***You may be interested to know that scientists have discovered a species of ant that reproduces asexually and in which the entire colony is not only all female but all clones of the ant queen! Read below:**_

_**""**_**Scientists Discover Asexual Female Ant Colony**

Posted on: Wednesday, 15 April 2009, 15:05 CDT

A species of tropical ant appears to have done away with sex altogether. Instead, the ants now only produce females through a process of cloning.

These Mycocepurus smithii ant species have been discovered as the first ever to reproduce without sex, said researchers in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Anna Himler, a biologist from the University of Arizona's Center for Insect Science led the study in which researchers used "fingerprinting" DNA to show that each ant was in fact a female clone of the queen.

Upon further investigation, Himler and colleagues discovered that the female ants were physically unable to mate due to a missing "mussel organ," which is essential for breeding.

This asexual form of breeding is extremely rare among female ants, researchers said.

"In social insects, there are a number of different types of reproduction," said Dr Himler. "But this species has evolved its own unusual mode."

Her team is unable to tell why, and at what point in history the ants began to reproduce asexually. Future investigations will be aimed to providing more answers to those questions.

Dr. Himler explained that there are advantages to the ants' unusual method of reproduction.

"It avoids the energetic cost of producing males, and doubles the number of reproductive females produced each generation from 50% to 100% of the offspring."

"If we're more diverse, we're more resistant to parasites and disease," Laurent Keller, an expert in social insects from the University of Lausanne, told BBC News.

"In a colony of clones, if one ant is susceptible to a parasite, they will all be susceptible. So if you're asexual, you normally don't last very long.

"But in ants we're seeing more and more reports of unusual methods of reproduction," added Professor Keller, who was not involved in this study.

"When we started to study this species more closely, we just weren't finding any males. That's when we started to look at them in a different way," said Dr. Himler.""

On the Net:

University of Arizona Center for Insect Science

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports


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